When he had started his enterprise he had hoped to make this man his friend, not comprehending at first how great a cause for hostility was created by the very purchase of the land.

He had been a new-comer from the old country, and, being alone, had desired friendship.

He was Harry Heathcote's equal in education, intelligence, and fortune, if not in birth--which surely, in the Australian bush, need not count for much.
He had assumed, when first meeting the squatter, that good-fellowship between them, on equal terms, would be acceptable to both; but his overtures had been coldly received.

Then he, too, had drawn himself up, had declared that Heathcote was an ignorant ass, and had unconsciously made up his mind to commence hostilities.

It was in this spirit that he had taken Nokes into his mill, of whose character, had he inquired about it, he would certainly have heard no good.