On the way to and from Ticonderoga the men had drunk a good deal of lake water, and this with the grief over our defeat and the filthy state of our camp had caused much sickness.
PROVINCIALS BEAT REGULARS SHOOTING
Having been out in the woods on scouts, I was in good condition, and my wounds began to heal quickly. Edmund took me over to see the man we had rescued at Ticonderoga. We found him doing well, cursing the French, and aching to get at them again. We looked up our kinsmen Hector and Donald and struck up a great friendship with the men of the Black Watch. Hector and Donald were both God-fearing men, and went with us several times to hear Parson Cleveland of Bagley's regiment preach. He gave us sermons full of meat, and we enjoyed them.
The regulars and provincials did not get on well together. The Englishmen looked down on the provincial officers and men, and this caused much hard feeling. One day in August, the regulars and provincials practised firing with great guns at a target in the lake, and our men beat the regulars thoroughly. That pleased us and made the old country men feel pretty glum. Although the regulars scorned the provincials, yet they held the Rangers in high esteem.
"Why is it, Donald," I asked, "that the regulars think so well of us, and laugh at the rest of the provincials?"
"Well, man, one reason is, because you're no province soldiers at all, being in the direct pay and service of the King, like ourselves. And then you're a braw set of men, and ken this fighting in the woods a deal better than we do, and we know it. But the provincials are gawks from country towns, without discipline, and with no more knowledge of the woods than we have."
"But Edmund and I are from a town like them."
"You've keppit gude company, since you've been with the Rangers, and have been long enough with them to look and act like the rest of them. One would take you for hunters and woodsmen."
"But the provincials were the last to leave the field at Ticonderoga."