s in America the Highlanders boasted, not with entire truth as
we shall see, that they with their bare legs enjoyed better health than
those who wore breeches and warm clothing. At Louisbourg they did well.
At Quebec a Highland officer's knowledge of French proved a great boon.
When, in the darkness of the momentous morning of September 13th, 1759,
Wolfe's boats were drifting down with the tide close to the north shore
near Quebec, intending to land and scale the heights at what is now
Wolfe's Cove, a French sentry called out sharply from the bank, "_Qui
vive?_" A Highland officer, who had served in Holland, was able to reply
"_France!_" without betraying his nationality.

"_A quel regiment?_" demanded the sentry.

"_De la reine_," answered the Highlander, giving the name of a
well-known French regiment commanded by Bougainville; and then he added
in a low voice, "_Ne faites pas de bruit; ce sont les vivres_"--for a
convoy with provisions was expected by the French. The Highlanders were
at the forefront in the stiff climb up the heights which proved to be
Wolfe's master stroke. Malcolm Fraser has left his own account of that
morning's work. The troops, he says, had been in the boats since nine
o'clock on the previous night. At about twelve they had set out with a
falling tide and they landed just as day was breaking. The light
infantry struggled up the hill first, the French meanwhile firing on the
boats, killing and wounding some of the occupants; but "the main body of
our army soon got to the upper ground, after climbing a hill or rather a
precipice, of about three hundred yards, very steep and covered with
wood and brush." By ten the army was drawn up in order of battle,--"in a
masterly manner," John Nairne said later,--on the Plains of Abraham, the
bag-pipes of the Highlanders screaming a wild defiance to the foe. Then
followed that brief death grapple, fatal to the leader on each side.
Fraser and his Highlanders, we are told, rushed at the enemy with their
broadswords in such irresistible fury that they were driven with a
prodigious slaughter into the town. The Highlanders suffered as much
after the battle as in it, for General Murray led them to reconnoitre in
the direction of the General Hospital and a good many were shot by the
French from bushes and from houses in the suburbs of St. Louis and St.
John. To the French the Highlanders seemed especially ferocious,
possibly owing to the wild music of their pipes, th