"Why, look you, Loskiel, even in the wilderness somehow I always have contrived to discover a sweetheart of some sort or other--yes, even in the Iroquois country, cleared or bush, somehow or other, sooner or later, I stumble on some pretty maid who flutters up in the very wilderness like a partridge from under my feet!" "That is your reputation," I remarked.
"Oh, damme, no!" he protested.

"Don't say it is my reputation!" But he had that reputation, whether he realised it or not; though as far as I had seen there was no real harm in the man--only a willingness to make love to any petticoat, if its wearer were pretty.

But my own notions had ever inclined me toward quality.

Which is not strange, I myself being of unknown parentage and birth, high or low, nobody knew; nor had anybody ever told me how I came by my strange name, Euan Loskiel, save that they found the same stitched in silk upon my shift.
For it is best, perhaps, that I say now how it was with me from the beginning, which, until this memoir is read, only one man knew--and one other.

For I was discovered sleeping beside a stranded St.Regis canoe, where the Mohawk River washes Guy Park gardens.