the boundless joy of the army, Wolfe's malady had abated, and he was
able to command in person. His ruined health, the gloomy prospect of the
siege, and the disaster at Montmorenci, had oppressed him with the
deepest melancholy, but never impaired for a moment the promptness of
his decisions, or the impetuous energy of his action.

He sat in the stern of one of the boats, pale and weak, but borne up to
a calm height of resolution. Every order had been given, every
arrangement made, and it only remained to face the issue. The ebbing
tide sufficed to bear the boats along, and nothing broke the silence of
the night but the gurgling of the river, and the low voice of Wolfe, as
he repeated to the officers about him the stanzas of Gray's "Elegy in a
Country Churchyard," which had recently appeared, and which he had just
received from England. Perhaps as he uttered those strangely
appropriate words:--

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave," the shadows of his own
approaching fate stole with mournful prophecy across his mind.
"Gentlemen," he said, as he closed his recital, "I would rather have
written those lines than take Quebec to-morrow."

As they approached the landing-place, the boats edged closer in towards
the northern shore, and the woody precipices rose high on their left
like a wall of undistinguished blackness.

"_Qui vive?_" shouted a French sentinel from out the impervious gloom.

"_La France!_" answered a captain of Fraser's Highlanders from the
foremost boat.