Mrs. Stone smiled, but her husband looked grave. Strange old recollections, and those by no means of a pleasing nature, were brought back to his mind by the sight of that—till now—forgotten letter to his mother. Ben put up his hand to his forehead, and pushed up the nightcap from his temples.
"Yes, yes," he muttered to himself, "I remember writing that letter as if it were but yesterday; I remember the very button which I used to press down the wafer. I was very wretched on first going to school,—the boys bullied me, and I could not bear regular work; so to get my poor mother to take me home, I wrote that letter with a big falsehood in it. It was the first,—the only note as ever I sent her, and it was full of lies! Strange that that should turn up now!"
"There's nothing to take to heart in such an old matter as that," observed Mrs. Stone, struck by the unusual gravity of her husband, who generally turned everything into a jest. "Nobody thinks of raking up what they've done wrong forty or fifty years back."
"Tut, I should not care a toss of a straw about it," replied Stone, "had I told the falsehood to any one but my mother, and that just a few days before I lost her. I'd never an opportunity of telling her that I'd deceived her, or of asking her to forgive me, for I did not go home till she lay in her coffin. To think of that vile bit of paper turning up against me now!" Ben doubled the note, and, tearing it into pieces, threw the fragments on the floor.
It may be a matter of surprise that a sin of childhood should have in the slightest degree ruffled the easy conscience of such a man as Ben Stone. He had thought very little indeed of sinning against God, but his natural affections made him feel pain at having sinned against a sick mother. Perhaps the words of Franks had not been so utterly unheeded as they had seemed at first to be, and had served to rouse a suspicion, confirmed by the school-boy's letter, that there might be many a forgotten fault of the highly respectable man that would "turn up against him" some day; faults for which forgiveness had never been granted or asked. Be that as it may, Stone suddenly found out that he was tired and sleepy, and bade his wife shut up the box and take it away. The evening was getting on; it was time for him to take his night-draught, and go quietly to rest.
Though the night-draught was taken and the pillows carefully beaten up and sleep soon closed the invalid's eyes, it was not quiet rest. A confused medley of thoughts shaped themselves into dreams, which took their color from what had occurred during the day. Ben Stone in his sleep was still looking over and examining things of the past; his whole room appeared to be filled up with boxes, one piled on another, and there seemed to be a necessity for him to open and put them all into order. This was in itself an oppressive feeling to the dreamer; but the oppression became much greater when he found that each box was filled to overflowing with bills,—old, forgotten bills,—and that not one of them was receipted; not one had ever been paid. Stone had a dim idea that all these debts were connected with unforgiven sin, from that falsehood contained in his first letter to the last "idle word" which had fallen from his lips. As box after box was emptied, and every unpaid bill thrown down in despair, the white paper seemed to turn into foam, a sea was rising around him, and it appeared to Stone as if his numberless debts would drown him at last. Ned Franks was by the side of the dreamer, helping him to look over his boxes, and saying, every now and then, in an earnest, anxious tone, "Ben Stone, if you don't pay, you are a ruined man!—if you don't pay, you are ruined forever!" So strong was the impression left on the dreamer's mind, that he awoke with the words on his lips, "If you don't pay, you are ruined forever!"
Very still was the room when Stone opened his eyes with a start, relieved to find that he had, after all, been but dreaming. One feeble night-light was making "darkness visible" in the chamber, where no other object could distinctly be seen. Even so faint a light had Stone's conscience hitherto thrown upon spiritual things, as different from the clear radiance of Truth as the night-light from the sun. The sinner had not known his sinfulness because his light had been too dim to enable him to see it.
As Ben Stone lay silent and still on his pillow, the breeze bore to him, more distinctly than he ever before had heard it in his cottage, the sound of the church clock striking ONE. For once Stone felt something solemn in the sound; he felt that time was being meted out to him, that his remaining hours might be few, and that he was not prepared for eternity.
Then Stone thought of Ned Franks. The sailor was not afraid of death, but his reason for not fearing it was something utterly different from the easy reliance on his own goodness which the carpenter knew to have been his own. Ned Franks had shrunk from the idea of his safety depending on his merits. On what then did it depend? The invalid, with a dawning perception that he himself might not be quite as secure as he had lately thought himself to be, felt desirous to know more clearly what was Franks's hope of salvation; and when, in the morning, Mrs. Stone was preparing her husband's breakfast, he asked her to stop the sailor when next he should pass their door, and ask him to step in and see him.