Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 3/Barlow Brothers' books
BARLOW BROTHERS’ BOOKS.
Between twenty and thirty years ago Reuben and Samuel Barlow commenced to trade together as grocers under the style and title of Barlow Brothers. Up to the present day a brass-plate may be seen—by those who know where to look for it—bearing the inscription, “Barlow Brothers, Grocers.” When the plate was first engraved it was displayed at the door of a shop, where men, if so minded, might purchase ounces of tea and pennyworths of figs. In those early days Reuben and Samuel stood themselves behind the counter, and how humble soever the customers, whose wants they might be called upon to supply, there was no diminution in the courtesy with which they were wont to demand, “How can we serve thee this morning?” or “Shall we send it in, or wilt thou take it with thee?” But, after fifteen or sixteen prosperous years, Barlow Brothers went so far towards kicking down the ladder by which they had risen, that they declined for the future to enter into transactions of this limited nature, and having taken counsel together, turned their shop into a warehouse, the floor above into offices, sent out a circular of thanks to the more important of their retail customers, beginning with “Respected friend,” and ending with “thine, truly,” and came boldly before the world as wholesale grocers.
Samuel dying, unmarried, about a year after this step, left all that he had to leave to his surviving brother, who continued the busines, without alteration in the name of the firm. Barlow Brothers do not disdain a little of something verging on speculation now and then, and a few years ago, made a very handsome thing by going into currants at the right time, like many others, and unlike many others, kept it by going out again at the right time.
The principal business of the concern, however, is transacted with a very extensive country connection, which necessitates the employment of a large staff of travellers, clerks, apprentices, warehousemen, and so on. But when the firm first came into being, the sole assistant of the brothers (with the exception of the porter) was a certain Isaac Jackson, who discharged the double duties of shopman and clerk, and who had progressed with the business, until at last he became cash and book-keeper, as well as confidential clerk and general adviser to Reuben Barlow. Although not like his employer, a “Friend,” yet Isaac was one of the shyest and meekest of men; small and shrivelled, and always clad in sober-coloured raiment of unchanging fashion, the only alteration ever noticeable in his outward man, arose from the fact of his wearing a wig in winter, while he went bald in summer; silent and reserved, he had no tastes, no amusements, no hopes and fears, no cares or enjoyments, but such as arose from and had reference to Barlow Brothers, their business, and—pre-eminently and superlatively—their books. He lived on the premises—as did the warehouseman, whose wife acted as housekeeper—and often enough, after the place was closed to the outer world for the night, Isaac used to remain in the counting-house, engaged in posting, balancing, and entering up those cherished volumes. And truly, if he gave much care and attention to them, they well repaid him; they were model books,—no blots defaced their broad surfaces; no erasures ruffled their smooth texture; no critic could have made just objection to aught there visible, had any such ever seen them, which Isaac would have taken good care to place beyond the reach of possibility: those sacred objects were not to be gazed at by profane eyes, nor handled by careless or flagitious fingers. It was believed that Isaac would rather you damaged himself than his books, and a young apprentice had personal proof of how dangerous it was to transgress in this respect, when once, by way of a joke, as he thought, he dropped the day-book on to the floor. Unhappy youth! Isaac, albeit usually slow alike in bodily movement and in wrath, sprang at him and boxed his ears soundly.
“Get—get out of the place,” he stammered; “you’re not fit to be in it.”
And though next day he begged Perkins’ pardon—hoped he hadn’t hurt him—and gave him a holiday, yet the sudden outburst of temper was a significant index to his feelings. Reuben Barlow, who was fond of a joke, sometimes used to say that if Isaac were going to be married, he was sure that the cash-book would manage somehow to stop the ceremony; and at other times was accustomed to speak of the ledger as Mrs. Jackson. It was often said that Isaac might have been a partner long ago, had he wished; and it was supposed that a strong reason in his mind for declining that position, was a feeling that, in such a case, it would be infra-dig to keep his own books, and an unwillingness to resign such duty into other hands.
From what had been stated, Isaac’s feelings may perhaps be imagined when it is told that Reuben Barlow entered his sanctum one morning, and thus addressed him:
“When thou hast the time, Isaac, I want thee to look at Black and Briggs’ account, and see what amounts we have paid them lately.”
“What’s the matter with Black and Briggs?” quoth Isaac.
“Nay, that is that thou hast to help to discover,” returned Reuben: “John Black tells me they find their cashier has been robbing them, and asks me to give him particulars of their account with us, without noising the matter abroad; therefore, Isaac, name it not to anyone at present.”
“Been robbing them!” echoed Isaac, lifting up his hands solemnly; “dear me—dear me. Ah, I feared that man greatly;—too flighty, too unsteady. Not six months ago he was in this very place receiving a payment, and when he came to write a receipt he pushed that ledger out of the way as if it had been a stone, and well nigh upset the inkstand over it. Well, well; dear me.” Isaac smoothed the leather cover of the insulted volume and turned up Black and Briggs’ folio. “Aye, just so,” he murmured, “two-fifty on the ninth March, one-twenty on How far shall I go back; has he been long engaged in this robbery?”
“I fear so,” replied Reuben.
“Nay but, in that case,” said Isaac, “how is it he hasn’t been found out ere now?”
“Why, thou must know, Isaac,” said Reuben, with a smile, “if thou can’st bring thy mind to compass it, that he has falsified the books, and has shown great art in erasing and altering figures to suit his ends.”
Altering the books!—erasing! Isaac was dumb for some minutes trying to fathom the depths of such cold-blooded villainy. At last he looked Reuben doubtfully in the face and murmured:
“I suppose—it is’nt a—hanging matter, is it?”
“Nay, nay,” said Reuben laughing, “not so bad as that; the law will lay him by the heels for the money he has taken, and leave what I dare say thou thinks the worst of the affair unpunished. But do thou make out the account, and I will give it to John Black myself.”
During the remainder of the day Isaac wore a very anxious and pre-occupied look, and when brought into contact with the apprentices who were apt to be careless and frivolous in word and deed, gazed seriously on them, and then gravely shook his head, as seeming with difficulty to refrain from addressing them. The truth is, he was brooding over the morning’s communication, and trying to imagine by what steps any man could arrive at the horrible wickedness of laying sacrilegious hands on such sacred articles as books; and when next day Reuben informed him that sundry discrepancies having been discovered between his account and that kept by the defaulter, he would have to attend at the police-court on the morrow, to prove certain payments, he became quite sepulchral in his gloom.
He did duly attend the police-court, but the case was not gone into fully, the accused being remanded for a week. It was, however, opened, and Isaac heard the attorney for the prosecution declare that the prisoner had been with his employers from a boy, that they had formed the highest opinion of him, had reposed the most perfect trust in him, and were deeply surprised and grieved by his misconduct. Telling this to Reuben Barlow that evening, “Aye,” observed the latter, “John Black said to me, ‘I would as soon have suspected him, Reuben, as thou would thy Isaac Jackson;’” and Reuben laughed a jolly laugh at the notion. But Isaac did not reply as the other expected.
“He had been with them from a boy,” he said, half to himself.
“And might have been with them for the rest of his life,” said Reuben, “if this had not happened.”
“Aye, if,” quoth Isaac, dreamily; “how did he begin? I say, how?”
“Nay, I know not, and it matters but little to thee,” said Reuben; “and now, hast thou a Bradshaw? I start to-morrow for Bristol, and shall not see thee till this business is over. I am glad thou has only to speak to dry facts, or I fear thou might bear hardly on him. Farewell.” And off went Reuben.
At the proper time Isaac attended and duly proved the payments as per account rendered. A shy and reserved man, he was considerably put about by the unwonted turmoil and bustle into which circumstances had plunged him, and the line taken by the prisoner’s legal defender didn’t tend to clear his brain or steady his nerves. That gentleman, seeing the manner of man before him, made an effort to bother Isaac by some of the stock-inquiries usual in such cases, as whether he, Isaac, never made mistakes by any chance,—whether he always made his entries at the time of payment—whether he would swear he had made these particular entries at the proper time—whether his cash had always balanced, and so on; and though, of course, he elicited nothing in favour of his client, he yet produced considerable effect upon poor Isaac, already bewildered by much musing on this affair.
The old man left the court half inclined to doubt, in spite of himself, whether he was, in reality, so correct as he had stated: even worse—whether, if so then, he, as well as that unhappy man might not one day be tempted and fall. True, he couldn’t contemplate, without horror, the idea; but that prisoner—would not he also at one time have felt the same dismay at such a contemplation? There must have been a beginning, and why was he himself more secure than other men, &c. &c. The fact is, Isaac, wearied, agitated, and disturbed, by brooding on this subject, and above all weak for want of his dinner, which he had been too much interested to get at the usual hour, was almost monomaniacal for the time, and looked so woebegone in the evening, that the housekeeper on seeing him, attacked him at once:
“Why, Mr. Jackson, whatever ’ave you been doing? Not had your dinner? No wonder you look so miserable. Now just you get some supper at once, and then take a drop of spirit and water, and go your ways to bed.”
It was in vain for Isaac to declare that he wasn’t hungry and could not eat; he was obliged to obey the housekeeper’s prescription to the letter, for though, after his meal, he felt so much better, that he said something about going into the office to finish that part of his day’s work which had been perforce neglected, the proposal was instantly and decidedly negatived, and accordingly to bed he went, taking into his custody, as usual, the safe-keys, which he always kept under his pillow. He rose so much better next morning that he felt disposed to laugh at his melancholy musings of the previous evening; and when it became time to repair to the counting-house, he had almost got over his fancies, and felt better than he had done for some days.
“It was having to appear against that poor fellow,” said he to himself, as he reverently removed the books from the safe. “Now that’s over, I hope I shall forget it and him: I almost wish I could think it a mistake on my part as that man wanted to make out; but it couldn’t be,” and with that Isaac opened his cash-book, and began to count over the cash-balance of the night before: “Ten, twenty, thirty,” he murmured, “hundred and sixty-five—hallo! talk of mistakes—let me add up again; no that’s all right. Why, bless me, I remember, I had one hundred and sixty-five pounds when I balanced, and now, by the book, I ought only to have one hundred and five. How can it be? such a thing never happened before; can I be going to”
And Isaac sank down upon his stool. Presently he began to examine the items in the book, and at length found that a sum of two hundred pounds paid by him and so entered, had been by the addition of a stroke to the middle cypher changed into two hundred and sixty, thus making him appear to have paid sixty pounds more than he had really done. Isaac fired up in a moment.
“Some of those rascally lads; think it a joke, I suppose; now if I only knew which of ’em, I’d turn him into the street in one minute: to dare to imitate my hand, too; I could have sworn it was my own doing. After all, though, it can’t be anyone doing it seriously, what object could he have? No, it must be one of those plaguey boys.”
So soliloquising, Isaac got to work, contenting himself, for the time, by darting such piercing glances at the apprentices who came within his ken, as one would have supposed must have overwhelmed the audacious evil-doer; but without producing any visible result. Isaac was very undecided that evening, whether or no to give the culprit a chance of compromising himself by repeating his crime; but anxiety for the safety of the books prevailed, and having, with his own hands, placed them in the safe, he took the key into his keeping, and left them for the night. By next morning, Isaac had reasoned himself into the belief that the audacious mischief had been a sudden outburst of boyish waywardness, a sharp tempation begotten of opportunity; and congratulating himself upon his decision to make all safe the night before, he resolved to correct the error which marred the perfection of his handiwork, and if he could not forget or forgive the outrage, at all events to trust to chance for the discovery of its perpetrator: and so did he please his fancy by the thought of the crushing exhortation which he would in such case bestow, that he went to his daily work in a comparatively equable and cheerful frame of mind. Miserable man! No sooner had his eye glanced at the symmetrical columns of the cash-book, than he perceived that the same busy hand had again been at work, and this time to a greater extent than before; numerous falsifications forced themselves on his bewildered vision executed with diabolical ingenuity, both as to the mode and style of the fraud: threes were changed into fives, ones into fours, cyphers into sixes and nines, and all in exact imitation of his own hand-writing; he was forced to admit that had his senses not borne witness to the contrary, he should have had to confess his own handiwork. The matter was now indeed serious: no one had access by fair means to the books but himself; could it possibly be, thought Isaac, in his anguish, that the fiend was permitted to chastise his pride of accuracy in this fearful manner? A cold sweat bathed his face at the thought. If done by mortal agency, however, what was the object of alterations which appeared to make him responsible for less money than he had really in his custody? it must plainly be that the money itself would next be by some means abstracted, and he, accused of the fraud, would be confronted by the altered books. And then—what then? Isaac couldn’t follow the train of thought further. He would find out this villainous plotter; he would conceal himself in the counting-house that night without naming the matter to a soul, and then he would see. So said, so done: after remaining working by himself till late, he went as usual to his own room, but instead of going to bed, slipped noiselessly down stairs with the key of the safe in his pocket, and took up his position behind a desk, where by a little management he could command a view of the whole room. Here he remained undisturbed, save by the ticking of the office clock, by fancied noises now and then, and by his own agitating thoughts. Chilled to the bone, obliged to remain in the dark, and perhaps a little frightened, he nevertheless sat bravely on, hearing the hours strike one after another, and every now and then taking a stealthy walk to keep himself awake; so passed time and the hour until the old church clock, just outside, boomed high in air—five. Glad to find his vigil so nearly over, and triumphant, though rather disappointed at finding himself no nearer a solution of the mystery, Isaac sat down on his own stool. and presently finding his head bump against the desk before him, was forced to conclude that he had been asleep, and so it proved; for on striking a match and consulting the clock, it showed a few minutes before six to be the time.
“Not quite an hour, at all events,” said Isaac, slapping his pocket to feel for the safe key; and rather put out at his failure in watchfulness. “And everything is quite still. No one can have been in that time; I should have been sure to wake. Well, the men will be here at six, and then I shall get to bed. I wish the scamp had come though, I shall have to watch again.”
At six, accordingly, Isaac was released, and went to make up for his night’s watch, but was at his place in the office very little later than his usual hour.
“Shall I tell Reuben Barlow, or not?” soliloquised he, as he unlocked the safe. “He’ll be back to-day, and it would be as well to do so.”
But on second thoughts he determined that it would be better to discover the plotter before speaking to any one.
“And, at all events,” said he to himself. “I can keep matters from getting worse for a few days, and by that time, perhaps—”
Isaac gave a deep groan, and well he might. In spite of watch and ward the enemy had been at work; the entries left yesternight in such order and symmetry were caricatured and travestied out of all shape, figure after figure having been perverted, altered, and inserted.
“It must have been in the room with me last night,” thought poor Isaac, and in another minute the clerks were alarmed by hearing a loud thump, and on entering Isaac’s office by finding its occupant on the floor insensible; for the first time in his life he had fainted. On coming to himself, however, he repelled all inquiry and advice.
“Nothing was the matter with him, he had slipped in getting on to his stool,” he said, “and fallen.” He closed the open cash-book sharply, and with a suspicious glance at those around him, and bidding them all rather ungraciously get to their work and leave him, he sat down to try and think calmly over the matter, it was in vain, and by the time Reuben Barlow returned, Isaac had pretty nearly worked himself into a fever. Informed of Isaac’s fainting fit, Reuben, nevertheless, said nothing on the point at first, beginning quietly to talk about indifferent subjects; but so dispirited and short were Isaac’s replies that at last he said:—
“I fear thou’rt not well to-day, Isaac?”
“What, I suppose you’ve been hearing some nonsense or other in the office since you came in, but there’s nothing the matter with me.”
“Well,” replied Reuben. “Seeing that thou’rt not in the habit of lying on thy back on the floor, thou mustn’t be surprised at what’s said, when thou begins to do so,” and observing that Isaac was indisposed for further parley, Reuben left him. Towards the close of business, however, he again visited him, and seeing him poring over the cash-book:—
“Doesn’t thou think,” he said, “thou hast done enough for to-day? Aye, that’s right, shut it to.”
Isaac having done so rather sharply.
“Nay,” he went on. “Never trouble thyself to put the books away, the youth Perkins shall do it for to-night.”
Now, Perkins, as may be remembered, was he who had misused the day-book on a certain former occasion, and so supposing that Reuben was joking him, Isaac said, rather sulkily:
“Perkins shan’t touch them.”
“Well, well,” said Reuben mildly, “if it will please thee better, I will even put them by myself,” and he forthwith began to suit the action to the word.
Now, though Reuben seeing that Isaac was ill, was only anxious to spare him exertion, the latter, full of the great mystery in which he was so dreadfully involved, saw only the desire to meddle with the causes of his woe, and all at once his mind became possessed with dark suspicions.
“Could Reuben suspect anything? Impossible! And yet, why this wish to handle the books?” Whatever might be the reason it must not be gratified. “I’m not going to leave them in the safe at all to-night, I’m going to take them up-stairs into my own room. I want to look over them,” said he.
“Thou’d far better leave them alone till to-morrow,” urged Reuben, “for I am sure thou art not fit—well, well, as thou wilt—as thou wilt.”
So Isaac had them borne upstairs before him, of course with the intention of keeping them under his eye, until he had made up his mind as to what course to pursue. He did keep them under his eye during the evening, and carried them into his bedroom, when he went there himself, placing them on a chair by his bedside, and carefully locking his room door.
“They’re safe for to-night,” thought Isaac, as he regarded them mournfully, “but it’s dreadful to think that I shall have to watch them in this way constantly.”
He took one last look at their fair proportions just before extinguishing his candle, and after putting his hand out of bed once or twice to feel them, turned over and slept the sleep of the weary. As his last waking care had been for the books, so was his first: he raised himself in bed and took a glance; there they were, but—but surely not in the same order as when he last saw them. He was out on the floor in an instant; one short look was sufficient, he fell back into the bed, and trembled till the couch shook again. Then a ray of hope fell upon him: had he left the door open? Willing to find his memory treacherous, he rose and tried the door; locked even as he had left it. And now, poor Isaac in despair, became firmly convinced that he was the victim of some evil spirit, and shuddered at the thought of his cotenant during “the dead waste and middle of the night.” Long time took he to dress, and a miserable man did he look when he presented himself at the breakfast table. Though breakfast was a mere form with him, he lingered so long in his chair, that Mrs. Hall, the housekeeper, seriously alarmed at this state of things, quietly went and begged Reuben (an early man) to come upstairs and persuade Isaac to forego attendance at his duties for the day.
“Why, Isaac, what’s the matter with thee to-day?” began Reuben, cheerily, but stopped short, shocked at the change in the other’s appearance. “Thou art surely very ill,” said he, more quietly.
“Nay, not ill,” said Isaac, faintly.
“Not ill!” said Reuben, “then thy appearance belies thee greatly; but if not, what then?”
Isaac sat silent for a while, and then burst out suddenly, “Why, if I tell the truth, I should say I was tormented by the devil.”
“Be not profane, Isaac,” said Reuben seriously, but then went on kindly: “Thee hast got something on thy mind: would it not comfort thee think’st thou, to let me know it?”
Thus adjured, Isaac poured out his story in a flood, to the great amazement of the other, who, however, listened to the end without a word. But that which had begotten fear in Isaac Jackson’s breast, roused only indignation in the stout heart of Reuben Barlow, and he smote the table with his hand rather more emphatically than beseemed the breadth of his brim, and the uprightness of his collar.
“I tell thee, Isaac,” he said, with a grim smile, “this is more carnal than spiritual work; but let me see it with mine own eyes.”
And off marched Reuben to Isaac’s bedroom, returning with the maltreated books.
“Truly,” he remarked, “this man—or fiend as thou wilt have it—hath a marvellous knack of imitating thy hand.”
“No man could do it,” quoth Isaac.
“I will prove to thee that some man hath done it,” retorted Reuben. “I will take my own stand in thy office this night, and if haply I light upon him—”
Reuben involuntary clenched his fist, and stretched forth his muscular right arm. Albeit, a member of a peaceable sect, his action was significant to the meanest capacity of his intention to make this outrage felt by the captured perpetrator.
But Isaac would not hear of solitary watch being kept, “for,” said he, “if you go to sleep as I did, all your trouble will be lost;” so that Reuben was forced to let him join in the vigil. They watched in company therefore, all night, without any disturbance, rather to Reuben’s disgust, who said at seven o’clock in the morning,
“Well, we’ve kept thy books safe, but otherwise, are just as we were; this man must know when watch is kept, and is wise enough to stay away out of trouble.”
“Don’t be so sure the books are all right,” said Isaac, drearily.
“What!” cried Reuben, “would thou have me take up thy absurd and profane notions! Let us look for ourselves;” and so saying, he opened the safe, and there, sure enough, were the books untouched and unaltered.
“Now, what say’st thou? asked Reuben.
Isaac was obliged to admit himself somewhat re-assured, and said that perhaps the mischief-maker had got tired of his joke.
“Well, thou can’st try by giving him the chance to-night,” returned Reuben.
Now this, if not absolutely deceitful in word, was decidedly so in intent; for Reuben himself had no thought of giving up the affair until be bad obtained some result, and he accordingly made his own arrangements for keeping solitary watch that night, and at a late hour was admitted to the premises by the warehouseman, whom he had taken into his confidence, and of whose good faith he was sure.
He sat undisturbed till the clock struck two, and was beginning to think that his watch would be as quiet as the night before, when he heard a slight noise, as of some one descending the stairs from the upper floor of the building.
“Now, for it,” thought Reuben, feeling about in the dark for a ruler, having found which, he got behind a desk and kept quiet. The door opened, and some one entered. Reuben heard the tread of a man without shoes. The intruder advanced, picked up a match-box from the desk, as Reuben knew by the sound, struck a match, and lighted a gas jet. Keeping him full in view, Reuben then watched him go to the safe, unlock it, bring forth the books, place them on Isaac’s desk, and then deliberately proceed to examine the entries. At this point Reuben advanced boldly and seized the individual by the arm, when—Isaac Jackson awoke, and found himself sitting on his own office stool, clad solely in a long white garment, and with a pen in his hand; while Reuben Barlow stood beside him looking rather grim, and saying,—
“Does’nt thou think thou’d be better in bed, Isaac, than playing these tricks?”
No more passed then; Reuben returned the books to their stronghold, put out the gas, saw Isaac into bed, and went his way; but the next day gave his book-keeper certain advice and warning at considerable length concerning morbid fancies, and heavy suppers. It was with no small difficulty that Isaac nerved himself to face the office for a little time, feeling convinced in his own mind as he did, that every little gathering of the clerks which he chanced to see, was by no means “a fortuitous combination of atoms,” but a meeting for the express purpose of debate respecting the recent mystery and its solution, particulars of which had in some unexplained manner leaked out. He lived for some little time in desperate fear of his nocturnal propensity; but no recurrence ever again troubled him, and he would by this time almost have forgotten it, if it were not for Reuben Barlow’s occasional jocular enquiry, “Barlow Brothers’ Books all right, Isaac?”