This warrant was issued while the survivors of Ticonderoga were encamped on the southern shore of Lake George.
In due time the tidings of this second repulse of the British troops before that fatal fortress reached the secluded manse on Tweedside; and from the cold and conventional detail of operations, as given in the official despatch of General Abercrombie, poor Lucy turned, with a pale cheek and anxious and haggard eyes, to the list of killed and wounded; and the appalling catalogue that appeared under the head of "Lord John Murray's Highlanders" struck terror to her soul. Her heart beat wildly, and her eyes grew dim; but mastering her emotion, the poor girl took in the fatal roll at a glance, and in a moment her eye caught the doubly distressing announcement—
"Wounded severely, and since missing, Captain Adam White."
"God help me now, father!" she exclaimed, and threw herself on the old man's breast; "he is gone for ever!"
"Missing!"
That term used in military returns and field reports to express the general absence of men dead or alive, struck a vague terror, mingled with hope, in the heart of Lucy Fleming. But then White was also wounded, and the dread grew strong in her mind that he might have bled to death, unseen or unknown, in some solitary place, with no kind hand near to soothe his dying agony or close his glazing eyes; and expiring thus miserably, have been left, like thousands of others, in that protracted war, unburied by the Red Indians—a prey to wolves and ravens, with the autumn leaves falling, and the rank grass sprouting among his whitened bones.
These thoughts, and others such as these, filled Lucy with a horror over which she brooded day and night; and it was in vain that her only surviving parent, the old minister,
"A father to the poor—a friend to all,"
sought to encourage her by rehearsing innumerable stories of those who had returned, in those days of vague and uncertain intelligence, after being mourned for and given up, yea, forgotten by their dearest friends and nearest relatives; but in the first paroxysm of her grief and terror Lacy refused to be consoled.
The name of the missing man was still borne in the Army List; and by the slaughter of Ticonderoga he was gazetted to the rank of brevet-major, and Oswald to a lieutenancy.