Holmes's vessels drift down the
stream, he did not tax his weary troops to follow them, thinking that
they would return as usual with the flood tide.[774] But for these
conspiring circumstances New France might have lived a little longer,
and the fruitless heroism of Wolfe would have passed, with countless
other heroisms, into oblivion.

[Footnote 771: _Journal tenu a l'Armee_, etc.]

[Footnote 772: _Memoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760.]

[Footnote 773: Foligny, _Journal memoratif. Journal a l'Armee_, etc.]

[Footnote 774: Johnstone, _Dialogue. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5
Oct._1759.]

For full two hours the procession of boats, borne on the current,
steered silently down the St. Lawrence. The stars were visible, but the
night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The General was in one of the
foremost boats, and near him was a young midshipman, John Robison,
afterwards professor of natural philosophy in the University of
Edinburgh. He used to tell in his later life how Wolfe, with a low
voice, repeated Gray's _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_ to the officers
about him. Probably it was to relieve the intense strain of his
thoughts. Among the rest was the verse which his own fate was soon to
illustrate,--

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
P/

"Gentlemen," he said, as his recital ended, "I would rather have written
those lines than take Quebec." None were there to tell him that the hero
is greater than the poet.

As they neared their destination, the tide bore them in towards the
shore, and the mighty wall of rock and forest towered in darkness on
their left. The dead stillness was suddenly broken by the sharp _Qui
vive!_ of a French sentry, invisible in the thick gloom. _France!_
answered a Highland officer of Fraser's regiment from one of the boats
of the light infantry. He had served in Holland and spoke French
fluently.

_A quel regiment?_

_De la Reine_, replied the Highlander. He knew that a part of that corps
was with Bougainville. The sentry, expecting the convoy of provisions,
was satisfied, and did not ask for the password.

Soon after, the foremost boats were passing the heights of Samos, when
another sentry challenged them, and they could see him through the
darkness running down to the edge of the water, within range of a
pistol-shot. In answer to his questions, the same officer replied, in
French: "Provision-boats. Don't make a noise; the English will hear
us."[775] In fact, the sloo