Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 2).djvu/282

 "Of whom speak you?"

"Of those children of the devil, who waste their precious moments in yonder idle antics. Ah! the wholesome restraint of discipline is but little known among this self-abandoned people! In a country of birches, a rod is never seen; and it ought not to appear a marvel in my eyes, that the choicest blessings of Providence are wasted in such cries as these."

David closed his ears against the juvenile pack, whose yells just then rang shrilly through the forest; and Duncan, suffering his lip to curl in a proud smile, as in mockery at his own momentary superstition, said firmly—

"We will proceed."

Without removing the safeguards from his ears, the master of song complied, and together they pursued their way, boldly, towards what David was sometimes wont to call "the tents of the Philistines."