He approached her and laid his hand upon her shoulder.  Adela shrank from his. touch, and for an instant gazed at him with wide eyes of fear.

He dropped his hands and let her go.

CHAPTER XXIX

The valley rested.  On the morning of Mutimer’s departure from Wanley there was no wonted clank of machinery, no smoke from the chimneys, no roar of iron-smelting furnaces; the men and women of the colony stood idly before their houses, discussing prospects, asking each other whether it was seriously Mr. Eldon’s intention to raze New Wanley, many of them grumbling or giving vent to revolutionary threats.  They had continued in work thus long since the property in fact changed hands, and to most of them it seemed unlikely, in spite of every thing, that they would have to go in search of new employments.  This morning they would hear finally.

The valley rested.  For several days there had been constant rain; though summer was scarcely over, it had turned cold and the sky was cheerless.  Over Stanbury Hill there were always heavy, dripping clouds, and the leaves of Adela’s favourite wood were already falling.  At the Manor there was once more disorder; before Mutimer and his wife took their departure the removal of furniture had commenced.  Over the whole scene brooded a spirit of melancholy.  It needed faith in human energy to imagine the pollutions swept away, and the seasons peacefully gliding as of old between the hillsides and amid meadows and garden closes.

Hubert Eldon drove over from Agworth, and was in the Public Hall at the appointed time.  His business with the men was simple and brief.  He had to inform them that their employment here was at an end, but that each one would receive a month’s wages and permission to inhabit their present abodes for yet a fortnight.  After that they had no longer right of tenancy.  He added that if any man considered himself specially aggrieved by this arrangement, he was prepared to hear and judge the individual case.

There was a murmur of discontent through the room, but no one took upon himself to rise and become spokesman of the community.  Disregarding the manifestation, Hubert described in a few words how and when this final business would be transacted; then he left the hall by the door which led from the platform.

Then followed a busy week.  Claims of all kinds were addressed to him, some reasonable, most of them not to be entertained.  Mr. Yottle was constantly at the Manor; there he and Hubert held a kind of court.  Hubert was not well fitted for business of this nature; he easily became impatient, and, in spite of humane intentions, often suffered from a tumult of his blood, when opposed by some dogged mechanic.