ding out for a considerable time a wretched fortification,
I resolved to give them battle; and, half an hour after six in
the morning, we marched with all the force I could muster,
namely, three thousand men."[829] Some of these had left the
hospitals of their own accord in their eagerness to take part in
the fray.

[Footnote 829: _Murray to Pitt, 25 May, 1760_.]

The rain had ceased; but as the column emerged from St.
Louis Gate, the scene before them was a dismal one. As yet
there was no sign of spring. Each leafless bush and tree was
dark with clammy moisture; patches of bare earth lay oozy and
black on the southern slopes: but elsewhere the ground was
still covered with snow, in some places piled in drifts, and
everywhere sodden with rain; while each hollow and depression
was full of that half-liquid, lead-colored mixture of snow and
water which new England schoolboys call "slush," for all
drainage was stopped by the frozen subsoil. The troops had
with them two howitzers and twenty field-pieces, which had
been captured when Quebec surrendered, and had formed a
part of that very battery which Ramesay refused to Montcalm
at the battle of the autumn before. As there were no horses, the
cannon were dragged by some of the soldiers, while others
carried picks and spades; for as yet Murray seems not to have
made up his mind whether to fortify or fight. Thus they advanced
nearly half a mile; till reaching the Buttes-a-Neveu, they formed
in order of battle along their farther slopes, on thesame ground
that Montcalm had occupied on the morning of his death.

Murray went forward to reconnoitre. Immediately before
him was a rising ground, and, beyond it, a tract of forest called
Sillery Wood, a mile or more distant. Nearer, on the left, he
could see two blockhouses built by the English in the last
autumn, not far from the brink of the plateau above the Anse
du Foulon where Wolfe climbed the heights. On the right, at
the opposite brink of the plateau, was a house and a fortified
wind mill belonging to one Dumont. The blockhouses, the mill,
and the rising ground between them were occupied by the
vanguard of Levis' army; while, behind, he could descry the
main body moving along the road from Ste.-Foy, then turning,
battalion after battalion, and rapidly marching across the
plateau along the edge of Sillery Wood. The two brigades of
the leading column had already reached the blockhouses by
the Anse du Foulon, and formed them