This Medlicot went about dressed like a man in the towns, exhibiting, as Harry thought, a contemptible, unmanly finery.

Of what use was it to tell him that Medlicot was a gentleman?
What Harry knew was that since Medlicot had come he had lost his sheep, that the heads of three or four had been found buried on Medlicot's side of his run, and that if he dismissed "a hand," Medlicot employed him--a proceeding which, in Harry Heathcote's aristocratic and patriarchal views of life, was altogether ungentleman-like.

How were the "hands" to be kept in their place if one employer of labor did not back up another?
He had been warned to be on his guard against fire.

The warnings had hardly been implicit, but yet had come in a shape which made him unable to ignore them.

Old Bates, whom he trusted implicitly, and who was a man of very few words, had told him to be on his guard.