"Do as I bid you, and get up the horse at once!" said Alf, in a commanding tone. "Tell my mother what I have said to you, and tell her, too, I have taken with me the Bible she gave me, and I'll read in it a bit every day for her sake. I believe in keeping promises. As for you, you'll find the team at the usual stable; you must go in early to-morrow for it."
"Where are you going, Master Alf?" urged the boy. "I'm afraid it's clean out to the bad!"
"That's none of your business! You don't know how a gentleman feels about a promise," was the answer.
"My father is here for the confirmation. He talked to me about that matter last night," persisted Lars. "He said when people were married they promised they would be good to each other, but that was their duty any way, if they were man and wife, promise or no promise. About confirmation, he said that was a good old custom that it was well to follow, but any way when boys get to our age they've got to make up their minds what sort of men they mean to be, and start clear and determined on the right track, or else they'll be sure, as the world is, to go to the bad. He said, too, we'd better be in a hurry, and have that fixed, for there was no saying how long even young folks would live. Young folks might be broken off right sudden, like a green branch in a high wind. I do wish you, Master Alf, could hear my father talk about this thing."
"I've heard you talk; that's quite enough of the family for me!" said Alf impatiently. "Attend to your business at once, will you, or I shall have to harness the horse myself."
"I wish my father was here, I do!" murmured Lars to himself, as he most unwillingly obeyed.
"That's for your sermon," said Alf, as he took the reins in his hand, and tossed a bit of silver to the serious, stolid-faced boy who was looking so sorrowfully at him.
As Alf said his last words to Lars, he wished in his heart that he had the stable-boy's full, simple determination to do right whatever it might cost him. The veil of self-contentment had fallen from Alf's eyes. His motives for what he was now doing stood out plainly before him. It was true that he did not wish to pledge himself openly to a life he did not intend to lead, but it was also true that it had long been his cherished wish to be free from the restraints of home, and able to yield to any and all the temptations that assailed him. He was voluntarily giving himself up to an evil, reckless life, and he knew it.