Between Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never existed much acquaintance, the former having come as a stranger and purchased the long-empty house at Mistover Knap not long before the death of Mrs. Yeobright's husband.
On the way back from the station he would drag the improvised cumbiambaalong in full view of all the people on the way, natives or outsiders, acquaintances or people yet to be known, without distinctions of any kind.
Jameson, exercising the faulty judgment of a surgeon acting upon inadequate information, elected to invade anyway, hoping to force the uitlanders' hand.