Promptly, eagerly, he began to lay his plans. On the morning of September 7th, in order to conceal from Montcalm their real purpose, the British, in gay red uniforms, embarked and sailed up and down the St. Lawrence, as if looking for a landing-place. On September 12th, the fatal time set for decisive action, some of the English vessels, with a large body of troops on board, hovered about the shore below Quebec, as if to force a landing there. Montcalm was completely deceived. The ruse had succeeded.
Meanwhile the main body of English troops, which was to make ready a landing, was quietly anchored in the river above Quebec. Twenty-four brave men volunteered as leaders to scale the cliffs. These men took their places in the foremost boat.
At two o'clock in the morning Wolfe gave the order to advance. It was a starlit night, but as there was no moon, it was dark enough to conceal the movements of the English. For two hours the long procession of boats filled with soldiers floated silently down the river. The brave young Wolfe, calm and masterful, was in one of the foremost boats. Fully expecting to be killed in the coming battle, he had, earlier in the evening, given to an old school-friend the portrait of his betrothed, Miss Lowther, which he had long worn about his neck. He said to his friend, "Give this to Miss Lowther, if I am killed."
THE DEATH OF WOLFE.
We can imagine the strain upon Wolfe's feelings during the two hours in which the boats floated downstream. Perhaps it was to relieve this strain that he repeated in a quiet voice Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." He seemed to dwell with peculiar feeling upon the last line in the following stanza:
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
On coming to the end of the poem, he said, "Gentlemen, I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec."