"Where's that good-for-nothing Mark?" demanded the vinedresser, when he returned home at night half tipsy. "Did he dare to venture to the shooting-match? I was told that he was seen sneaking about the outskirts of the village! where is he now?"
"He went to bed more than an hour ago," answered his mother, "and was no more at the shooting-match than I was, for I saw him reading in the garden."
"Mark, reading!" replied his father. "What could he be reading? It would be a miracle to see him with a book in his hand. An idle fellow like him, who never did learn any thing, and never will!"
The vinedresser's wife was silent, and after putting poor little Peter to bed, who was quite tired and weary, she managed to get the father to bed also, and peace reigned for a season in this miserable abode.
Mark, however, who was not asleep when his father returned, had heard himself called a good-for-nothing idle fellow, and he trembled from head to foot, when he found he had been seen in the neighborhood of the village.
"What a good thing it was," said he to himself, "that I did not go on! It was certainly God who prevented me!" added he, half ashamed of the thought because it was so new to him; but he determined no longer to resist it.
On the morrow, to the great surprise of his father and mother, Mark got up in good humor; he answered his father without grumbling, and when he was desired to go and work in the field, Mark hastened to take his hoe and spade, and set off, singing merrily.
"What has happened to him?" asked the father. "One would scarcely believe it was he! Wife, what did you say to him yesterday, to make him so good-humored this morning?"
"I never even spoke to him," said his wife, dryly. "You know how whimsical he is."
"I wish he may remain in his present mind!" said the vinedresser; and thereupon he went off to the ale-house, to talk with his neighbors of the best shots of the preceding day.