So, though parties of Canadians and Indians harassed the English in their camp, and were met and routed by the gallant Rangers, who always accompanied the English forces, the soldiers remained in their intrenchments, and took little notice of the rival camp. Sometimes under flags of truce messages passed between the hostile camps.
"You will no doubt batter and demolish a great part of the town," wrote Montcalm on one occasion, "but you will never get inside it!"
"I will have Quebec," wrote back Wolfe, "if I stay here till the winter. I have come from England to win it. I do not go back till my task is done."
Some smiled at that message; but Madame Drucour received it with a little shivering sigh.
"Ah," she exclaimed, "I have seen Monsieur Wolfe; I can hear him speak the words! Somehow it seems to me that he is a man who will never go back from his resolve. If he has made up his mind to take Quebec, Quebec will be taken!"
Book 6: Without Quebec.
[Chapter 1]: In Sight Of His Goal.
Wolfe stood rapt in thought beside the batteries upon Point Levi. From his own camp at the Montmorency falls he had come over in a boat to visit Brigadier Moncton's camp, opposite the city of Quebec; and now he stood surveying the town--and the havoc wrought upon its buildings by his cannon--with a glass at his eye, a look of great thoughtfulness and care stamped upon his thin face.
Near at hand, ready to answer if addressed, was Brigadier Moncton, a brave and capable officer; and a little farther off, also watching the General and the scene spread out before him, stood a little group of three, who had come across with Wolfe in the boat, and who were, in fact, none other than our old friends, Fritz Neville, Julian Dautray, and Humphrey Angell.
It had been an immense joy to these three men to meet together in the camp of Wolfe round about Quebec. Julian had accompanied the expedition from England, Fritz had joined Admiral Durell's contingent whilst it was waiting for junction with the fleet from England, and Humphrey had come to join them in the transport ships from New York, bringing news of friends in Philadelphia, where he had passed a portion of the time of waiting.