But poor White thought only of his betrothed wife, and far away from the shores of that lone American lake, from its guarded fortress and woods, where the stealthy Red man glided with his poisoned shafts, and from the columns of bronzed infantry, wearied by toil and stained by travel, his memory wandered to that sweet sequestered valley, where the pastoral Tweed was brawling past the windows of the old manse; and to the honeysuckle bower, where, at that moment, perhaps, Lucy Fleming, with pretty foot and rapid hand, urged round her ivory-mounted spinning-wheel; for, in those days of old simplicity, every Scottish lady spun, like the stately Duchess of Lauderdale, so famous for her diamonds and her imperious beauty. But now the snapping of flints, the springing of iron ramrods that rang in the polished barrels, the opening of pouches and careful inspection of ammunition by companies at open order, gave token of the terrors about to ensue; and old friends as they passed to and fro with swords drawn to take their places in the ranks, shook each other warmly by the hand, or exchanged a kindly smile, for the hour had come when many were to part, and many to take their last repose before the ramparts of Ticonderoga. "Stormers to the front!" was now the order that passed along the columns, as the arms were shouldered, and the companies closed up to half-distance, while the grenadier companies of the different corps were formed with the Highlanders, as a reserve column of attack; for on them, more than all his other troops, did the general depend; and a fine-looking body of men they were, those old British Grenadiers, whom Wolfe ever considered the flower of his army, though they wore those quaint, sugar-loaf Prussian caps, which we adopted with the Prussian tactics, and though their heads were all floured and pomatumed, with a smart pigtail trimmed straight to the seam of the coat behind, their large-skirted coats buttoned back for service and to display their white breeches and black leggings--their officers with triple-cocked hats and sleeve-ruffles, just as we see them in the old pictures of Oudenarde and Fontenoy. As Colonel Grant had been wounded by a random shot, Major Duncan Campbell of Inveraw, a veteran officer of great worth and bravery, led the regiment, and Adam White was by his side. The cracking roar of musketry, and the rapid boom-boom-booming of cannon, with the whistle and explosion of mortars, shook the echoes of the hitherto silent waste of wood and water, and pealed away with a thousand reverberations among the beautiful mountains that overlook Lake Champlain, as the British columns rushed to the assault; but alas! the entrenchments of the French were soon found to be altogether impregnable. The first cannon-shot tore up the earth under the feet of Ensign Oswald, and hurled him to the ground; but he rose unhurt, and rushed forward sword in hand.