But he is such a pig that he can't understand all that; and he thinks that I must be something low because I've bought with my own money a bit of land which never belonged to him, and which he couldn't use." Such was the nature of Giles Medlicot's soliloquy as he sat swinging his legs, and still smoking his pipe, on the fence which divided his sugar-cane from the other young man's run.
And Harry Heathcote uttered his soliloquy also.

"I wouldn't swear that he wouldn't do it himself, after all;" meaning that he almost suspected that Medlicot himself would be an incendiary.

To him, in his way of thinking, a man who would take advantage of the law to buy a bit of another man's land--or become a free-selector, as the term goes--was a public enemy, and might be presumed capable of any iniquity.

It was all very well for the girls--meaning his wife and sister-in-law--to tell him that Medlicot had the manners of a gentleman and had come of decent people.

Women were always soft enough to be taken by soft hands, a good-looking face, and a decent coat.