In the attitude taken up by the great firm of Quinion towards their former employé, there was no feeling of vindictiveness manifested. They had, in fact, never yet been known to prosecute a defaulting servant, although many opportunities had offered for so doing. Their leniency towards men who had been detected defrauding them had almost become proverbial, so that they were beginning to look upon it themselves as a matter of reproach.
The members of the firm were men of high principle, anxious not only to stand well in the public gaze, but desirous that their motives should be beyond suspicion. They were nominally religious men, but making no very pronounced profession of their opinions and beliefs. Crooked and perverse as the treatment of their London employés had been, their conduct was so surrounded with sophisms for arguments, that shadows had assumed substantial form, and they seemed to have persuaded themselves, if not others, that in all that they had done they had been guided only by the highest principles of moral rectitude, leaving nothing of which they need feel ashamed.
Burns has very aptly said—
"Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
And foolish notion."
They had not lost sight of the mother of Sinclair,—or Fellows, as we must continue to call him,—since their first impulse was to acquaint her with what they had heard.
Upon reflection, they felt it would be wiser to wait until, with the fresh light which they hoped to receive as the result of the inquiries set on foot, their mind was better made up as to the course they ought to pursue.
CHAPTER XX.
ON THE TRAIL.
"Thou art a fellow of a good report,
Thy life hath had some snatch of honour in it."
Julius Cæsar, Act V. sc. v.
Regina, which, prior to the advent of the Great Trunk Line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was possessed of but a few straggling log-shanties—the rough dwellings of settlers and squatters, the early pioneers in the great North-West of those civilising forces which are marching with so much rapidity across the face of the American Continent—is not only the principal town, but has the honour of being the capital of the province and the seat of the legislature.