refrain of the voyageurs' song. It was on those dizzy heights where Quebec lies like a fairy realm in the clouds, that she first saw No. 39 pounding away at the stern, unyielding rock.

Wolfe with his army was on the Isle of Orleans; the fleet with the numerous transports lay at an chor on his left; the tents stretched across the entire island; the intrenched troops of France, having their centre at the village Beauport, extended from the Montmorenci to the St. Charles; the city of Quebec, garrisoned by five battalions, bounded the horizon. At midnight on the twenty-eighth, the short darkness was lighted up by a fleet of fire ships, that, after a furious storm of wind, came down with the tide in the proper direction; but the British sailors grappled with them, and towed them free of the shipping.

The men-of-war gave the river to Wolfe, and he also had the superiority on the south shore of the St. Lawrence. During the night of the twentyninth, Wolfe, with four battalions, having crossed the south channel, occupied Point Levi, and where the mighty current, which below the town expands as a bay, narrows to a deep stream of but a mile in width, batteries of mortar and cannon were constructed. Early in July, the citizens of Quebec, foreseeing the ruin of their houses, volunteered to pass over the river and destroy the works;

but, at the trial, their courage failed them, and they retreated. The English, by the discharge of red-hot balls and shells, set on fire fifty houses in a single night, demolished the lower town, and injured the upper; but the citadel was beyond their reach, and every avenue from the river to the cliff was too strongly intrenched for an assault.

No real progress had as yet been made toward the capture of the stronghold. Wolfe was eager for battle, being willing to risk all his hopes on the issue. One evening, while in his tent, news came of the capture of a stranger by some Americans. Ordering the stranger to be brought to him, he found a wild-eyed haggard young man whose clothes were faded and torn from contact with thorns, and whose frame was emaciated by long travel and fasting.

"Are you a Frenchman?" asked the general. was the answer.

"I am an Acadian,

"Why are you
are you here?"

"I am still searching for Adrianne. They tore me away from her. They struck me on the head, since when I have not my wits at all times, but I want to find Adrianne."

The poor fellow was still talking in a wild, incoherent manner, when an American officer entered and explained:

General Wolfe, I know this poor fellow, and,

from letters received from home, he is evidently a relative of mine."

"You are Captain Stevens?" asked the general. "I am. This man's father was a Virginian and his mother an Acadian. He was evicted by General Winslow on the day he was to wed an Acadian maid, and has since been wandering through the forests from the St. Lawrence to Georgia in search of her. Perchance, he will be able to give us some valuable information of the country."

From him Wolfe obtained a fair description of the country round about Quebec. He learned that the eastern branch of Montmorenci was higher than the ground occupied by Montcalm, and, on the 9th, he crossed the north channel and encamped there; but the armies and their chiefs were still divided by the river precipitating itself down its rocky way into the impassable eddies and rapids.

At this point, Jean Baptiste de Barre was discharged and permitted to resume his wanderings. Noah Stevens promised as soon as Quebec was captured to aid him in his search.

From the point where Wolfe now was, he determined to make another advance on the enemy. Three miles in the interior, a ford was found; but the opposite bank was steep, woody and well intrenched. Not a spot on the line of the Montmorenci for miles into the interior, nor on the St.

Lawrence to Quebec, was left unprotected by the vigilance of the inaccessible Montcalm.

Wolfe proceeded to reconnoitre the shore above the town. In concert with Saunders, on the eighteenth, he sailed along the well-fortified bank from Montmorenci to the St. Charles. He passed the deep and spacious harbor, which at four hundred miles from sea, can shelter a hundred ships of the line. He neared the high cliff of Cape Diamond, towering like a bastion over the waters and surmounted by French banners. He coasted along the craggy wall of rock that extends beyond the citadel and noted the outline of the precipitous hill which forms the north bank of the river. Everywhere he beheld a natural fastness, vigilantly defended. Intrenchments, cannon, boats and floating batteries guarded every point. Had a detachment landed between the city and Cape Rouge, it would have encountered the danger of being cut off before support could have reached it. He would have risked a landing at St. Michael's Cove, three miles above the city, but the enemy prevented him by planting artillery and a mortar to play on his shipping.

At midnight on the twenty-eighth the French sent down a raft of fire-stages, consisting of nearly a hundred pieces; but these, like the fire-ships, did no injury. Scarce a day passed that there was not

a skirmish with some of the provincials and Indians and Canadians. Wolfe returned to Montmorenci, and July was almost gone without any effective advance being made. He resolved on an engagement as soon as practical. The premier of England had entrusted him with a great undertaking, and he resolved to succeed or perish. Sometimes, when alone, the soft eyes of his betrothed, Miss Lowther, seemed to beam tenderly on him, and he heard her voice calling him from over the sea to return from death and danger; but he threw off the feelings of oppression on such occasions, and in his soul cried:

"No, no; cease your pleading, lest I forget the voice of fame and only list to love and your own sweet tones!"

The Montmorenci, after falling over a perpendicular rock, flows for three hundred yards, amidst clouds of spray and rain-bow glories, in a gentle stream to the St. Lawrence. Near the junction, the river at low tide can be passed on foot. It was planned that two brigades should ford the Montmorenci at the proper time of the tide, while Moncton's regiments should cross the St. Lawrence in boats from Point Levi. The attempt was made; but some of the boats stuck on a ledge of rocks that runs out into the river. While the seamen were getting them off, amid the shot and shell of