CHAPTER VIII.
YOUNG POWYS.
Mr. Brownlow took his new clerk into his employment next morning. It is true that this was done to fill up a legitimate vacancy, but yet it took every body in the office a little by surprise. The junior clerk had generally been a very junior, taken in rather by way of training than for any positive use. The last one, indeed, whom this new-comer had been taken to replace, was an overgrown boy in jackets, very different, indeed, from the tall, well-developed Canadian whose appearance filled all Mr. Brownlow’s clerks with amazement. All sorts of conjectures about him filled the minds of these young gentlemen. They all spied some unknown motive underneath, and their guesses at it were ludicrously far from the real case. The conveyancing clerk suggested that the young fellow was somebody’s son “that old Brownlow has ruined, you know, in the way of business.” Other suppositions fixed on the fact that he was the son of a widow by whom, perhaps, the governor might have been bewitched, an idea which was speedily adopted as the favorite and most probable explanation, and caused unbounded amusement in the office. They made so merry over it that once or twice awkward consequences had nearly ensued; for the new clerk had quick ears, and was by no means destitute of intelligence, and decidedly more than a match, physically, for the most of his fellows. As for the circumstances of his engagement, they were on this wise.
At the hour which Mr. Brownlow had appointed to see him again, young Powys presented himself punctually in the outer office, where he was made to wait a little, and heard some “chaffing” about the governor’s singular proceedings on the previous day and his interviews with Inspector Pollaky, which probably conveyed a certain amount of information to the young man. When he was ushered into Mr. Brownlow’s room, there was, notwithstanding his frank and open countenance, a certain cloud on his brow. He stood stiffly before his future employer, and heard with only a half-satisfied look that the lawyer, having made inquiries, was disposed to take advantage of his services. To this the young backwoodsman assented in a stilted way, very different from his previous frankness; and when all was concluded, he still stood doubtful, with the look upon his face of having something to say.
“I don’t know what more there is to settle, except the time when you enter upon your duties,” said Mr. Brownlow, a little surprised. “You need not begin to-day. Mr. Wrinkell, the head-clerk, will give you all the necessary information about hours, and show you all you will have to do—Is there any thing more you would like to say?”
“Why, yes, sir,” said the youth abruptly, with a mixture of irritation and compunction. “Perhaps what I say may look very ungrateful; but—why did you send a policeman to my mother? That is not the way to inquire about a man if you mean to trust him. I don’t say you have any call to trust me—”
“A policeman!” said Mr. Brownlow, in consternation.
“Well, sir, the fellows there,” cried the energetic young savage, pointing behind him, “call him Inspector. I don’t mean to say you were to take me on my own word; any inquiries you liked to make we were ready to answer; but a policeman—and to my mother?”
Mr. Brownlow laughed, but yet this explosion gave him a certain uneasiness. “Compose yourself,” he said, “the man is not a policeman, but he is a confidential agent, whom when I can’t see about any thing myself—but I hope he did not say any thing or ask any thing that annoyed Mrs.—your mother,” Mr. Brownlow added, hurriedly; and if the jocular youths in the office had seen something like a shade of additional color rise on his elderly cheek, their amusement and their suspicions would have been equally confirmed.
“Well, no,” said young Powys, the compunction gaining ground; “I beg your pardon, sir; you are very kind. I am sure you must think me ungrateful—but—”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Brownlow; “it is quite right you should stand up for your mother. The man is not a policeman—and I never—intended him—to trouble—your mother,” he added, with hesitation. “He went to make inquiry, and these sort of people take their own way; but he did not annoy her, I hope?”