Given that he lived in an era when same-sex ‘relations’ were criminal[in England, at least they were], he was…in a matter of speaking. An ‘outlaw’ of sorts.
The thuggish pair of brothers(cwhose family name escapes me at the moment, are the most likely suspects…and, as they are budding psychopaaths, the thought of endangering Dean and Heart not only doesn’t bother them, it would amuse them.
That guy kind of reminds me of the villain from the “Perils of Penelope Pitstop” cartoons.