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