He was dressed much as a gentleman dresses in the country at home, and was therefore accounted to be a fop by Harry Heathcote, who was rarely seen abroad in other garb than that which has been described.

Harry was an aristocrat, and hated such innovations in the bush as cloth coats and tweed trowsers and neck-hand-kerchiefs.
Medlicot had been full of wrath against his neighbor all the morning.
There had been a tone in Heathcote's voice when he gave his parting warning as to the fire in Medlicot's pipe which the sugar grower had felt to be intentionally insolent.

Nothing had been said which could be openly resented, but offense had surely been intended; and then he had remembered that his mother had been already some months at the mill, and that no mark of neighborly courtesy had been shown to her.
The Heathcotes had, he thought, chosen to assume themselves to be superior to him and his, and to treat him as though he had been some laboring man who had saved money enough to purchase a bit of land for himself.

He was, therefore, astonished to find the two young ladies sitting with his mother on the very day after such an interview as that of the preceding night.
"The leddies from Gangoil, Giles, have been guid enough to ride over and see me," said his mother.
Medlicot, of course, shook hands with them, and expressed his sense of their kindness, but he did it awkwardly.

He soon, however, declared his purpose of riding part of the way back with them.
"Mr.Heathcote must have been very wet last night," he said, when they were on horse-back, addressing himself to Kate Daly rather than to her sister.
"Indeed he was--wet to the skin.