Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 1).djvu/288

 Name chapter and verse; in which of the holy books do you find language to support you?"

"Book!" repeated Hawk-eye, with singular and ill-concealed disdain; "do you take me for a whimpering boy, at the apron string of one of your old gals; and this good rifle on my knee for the feather of a goose's wing, my ox's horn for a bottle of ink, and my leathern pouch for a cross-barred handkercher of yesterday's dinner! Book! what have such as I, who am a warrior of the wilderness, though a man without a cross, to do with books! I never read but in one, and the words that are written there are too simple and too plain to need much schooling; though I may boast that of forty long and hard working years."

"What call you the volume?" said David, misconceiving the other's meaning.

" 'Tis open before your eyes," returned the scout; "and he who owns it is not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said, that there are men who read in books, to convince themselves there is a God! I