The British force in America was divided into three expeditions. We shall deal briefly with each in turn. But for fear that hard facts may obscure the romantic setting, it will be just as well to sketch the features of the country in which these undertakings played their part. It had all the wonder of a virgin land. It was there that—
Soldiers and priests in the grim bivouac—
A handful dreaming in the wilderness—
In fancy reached Quebec and Tadousac
And told of great exploits, of long duresse,
Of Fort St. Louis’ graves, of sore distress,
Of France’s venture in the southern land.[[3]]
Vast lakes and rivers, mountains and cañons, not unlike to the glens the Highlanders had left in Scotland, confronted them. In the deep stillness of the woods wild animals slipped into the darkness, and savages were a sleepless menace. In the dead of a summer night the long-drawn cry of an Indian brave would chill the blood of some straggling soldier, or from the thicket would fly the arrows of death. It was a country where one force could not hope to keep in touch with another nor guard its lines of communication: an army was swallowed up in a wilderness of forests and rivers. In such circumstances each man carried his life and the lives of his comrades in his hands, for defeat meant annihilation or capture, and it would be better to fall into the hands of the French than to be tracked down by their ruthless allies the Indians. “Here were no English woodlands, no stretches of pale green turf, no vistas opening beneath flattened boughs, with blue distant hills, and perhaps a group of antlers topping the bracken. The wild life of these forests crawled among thickets or lurked in sinister shadows. No bird poured out its heart in them; no lark soared out of them, breasting heaven. At rare intervals a note fell on the ear—the scream of hawk or eagle, the bitter cackling laugh of blue jay or woodpecker, the loon’s ghostly cry—solitary notes, and unhappy, as though wrung by pain out of the choking silence; or away on the hillside a grouse began drumming, or a duck went whirring down the long waterway until the sound sank and was overtaken by the river’s slow murmur.
“When night had hushed down these noises, the forest would be silent for an hour or two, and then awake more horribly with the howling of wolves.”[[4]]
We now come to one of those episodes of reckless bravery that have immortalised the Highland regiments—an engagement that was to ring throughout England, bringing a new renown to the Black Watch. It is associated with a place bearing the strange and musical name of Ticonderoga—‘the meeting of the waters.’ Many years before our story the famous Frenchman Champlain had nearly suffered defeat in that dreaded country of the Iroquois. Many years had passed since then, and now Ticonderoga was held by the French. How difficult a place it was to storm will be gathered from the following description: