Their attachment to a wandering life is, I verily believe, unconquerable."
"It is a precarious life," observed Marmaduke, without hearing the Sheriff's observation, "and one that brings more evils with it than present suffering. Trust me, my young friend, my experience is greater than thine, when I tell thee, that the unsettled life of these hunters is of vast disadvantage for temporal purposes, and it totally removes one from within the influence of more sacred things."
"No, no, Judge," interrupted the Leather-stocking; who was hitherto unseen, or disregarded; "take him into your shanty in welcome, but tell him the raal thing. I have lived in the woods for forty long years, and have spent five years at a time without seeing the light of a clearing, bigger than a wind-row in the trees; and I should like to know where you'll find a man, in his sixty-eighth year, who can get an easier living, for all your betterments, and your deer-laws; and, as for honesty, or doing what's right between man and man, I'll not turn my back to the longest winded deacon on your Patent."
"Thou art an exception, Leather-stocking," returned the Judge, nodding good-naturedly at the hunter; "for thou hast a temperance unusual in thy class, and a hardihood exceeding thy years. But this youth is made of materials too precious to be wasted in the forest. I entreat thee to join my family, if it be but till thy arm be healed. My daughter here, who is mistress of my dwelling, will tell thee that thou art welcome."
"Certainly," said Elizabeth, whose earnestness was strongly checked by the assumption of a woman's dignity. "The unfortunate would be welcome at any time, but doubly so, when we feel that we have occasioned the evil ourselves."
