she exclaimed. "Would
to Heaven I could see an end of it!"

"The life is well enough, Judith," was the answer, "being pretty much as
it is used or abused. What would you wish to see in its place?"

"I should be a thousand times happier to live nearer to civilized
beings--where there are farms and churches, and houses built as it might
be by Christian hands; and where my sleep at night would be sweet and
tranquil! A dwelling near on of the forts would be far better than this
dreary place where we live!"

"Nay, Judith, I can't agree too lightly in the truth of all this. If
forts are good to keep off inimies, they sometimes hold inimies of their
own. I don't think 'twould be for your good, or the good of Hetty, to
live near one; and if I must say what I think, I'm afeard you are
a little too near as it is." Deerslayer went on, in his own steady,
earnest manner, for the darkness concealed the tints that colored the
cheeks of the girl almost to the brightness of crimson, while her own
great efforts suppressed the sounds of the breathing that nearly choked
her. "As for farms, they have their uses, and there's them that like
to pass their lives on 'em; but what comfort can a man look for in a
clearin', that he can't find in double quantities in the forest? If air,
and room, and light, are a little craved, the windrows and the streams
will furnish 'em, or here are the lakes for such as have bigger longings
in that way; but where are you to find your shades, and laughing
springs, and leaping brooks, and vinerable trees, a thousand years old,
in a clearin'? You don't find them, but you find their disabled trunks,
marking the 'arth like headstones in a graveyard. It seems to me that
the people who live in such places must be always thinkin' of their own
inds, and of universal decay; and that, too, not of the decay that is
brought about by time and natur', but the decay that follows waste and
violence. Then as to churches, they are good, I suppose, else wouldn't
good men uphold 'em. But they are not altogether necessary. They call
'em the temples of the Lord; but, Judith, the whole 'arth is a temple of
the Lord to such as have the right mind. Neither forts nor churches
make people happier of themselves. Moreover, all is contradiction in
the settlements, while all is concord in the woods. Forts and churches
almost always go together, and yet they're downright contradictions;
churches being for peace, and forts for war. No, no--giv