The Fire Warden

“I hate to leave it this way,” he said, impulsively. “I want to live in peace with my neighbors. I mean to make no threats—but neither can I be moved by threats.… Perhaps time will aid us to come to a fair understanding; perhaps a better knowledge of one another. Although the shooting and fishing are restricted, my house is always open to my neighbors. You will be welcome when you come—”
The silence was profound as he hesitated, standing there before them in the sunshine of the doorway—a lean, well-built, faultless figure, an unconscious challenge to poverty, a terrible offence to their every instinct—the living embodiment of all that they hated most in all the world.