re ruthlessly home.
After the fight one of the British officers wrote: "There was not a
bayonet in the three leading British regiments, nor a broadsword amongst
the Highlanders, that was not crimson with the blood of a foeman." Wolfe
himself charged at the head of the Grenadiers, his bright uniform making
him conspicuous. He was shot in the wrist, wrapped a handkerchief round
the wound, and still ran forward. Two other bullets struck him--one, it
is said, fired by a British deserter, a sergeant broken by Wolfe for
brutality to a private. "Don't let the soldiers see me drop," said
Wolfe, as he fell, to an officer running beside him. An officer of the
Grenadiers, a gentleman volunteer, and a private carried Wolfe to a
redoubt near. He refused to allow a surgeon to be called. "There is no
need," he said, "it is all over with me." Then one of the little group,
casting a look at the smoke-covered battlefield, cried, "They run! See
how they run!" "Who run?" said the dying Wolfe, like a man roused from
sleep. "The enemy, sir," was the answer. A flash of life came back to
Wolfe; the eager spirit thrust from it the swoon of death; he gave a
clear, emphatic order for cutting off the enemy's retreat; then, turning
on his side, he added, "Now God be praised; I die in peace."

That fight determined that the North American continent should be the
heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race. And, somehow, the popular instinct,
when the news reached England, realised the historic significance of the
event. "When we first heard of Wolfe's glorious deed," writes Thackeray
in "The Virginians"--"of that army marshalled in darkness and carried
silently up the midnight river--of those rocks scaled by the intrepid
leader and his troops--of the defeat of Montcalm on the open plain by the
sheer valour of his conqueror--we were all intoxicated in England by the
news." Not merely all London but half England flamed into illuminations.
One spot alone was dark--Blackheath, where, solitary amidst a rejoicing
nation, Wolfe's mother mourned for her heroic son--like Milton's
Lycidas--"dead ere his prime."

THE GREAT LORD HAWKE

THE ENGLISH FLAG

"What is the flag of England? Winds of the world, declare!
* * * * * * * * *
The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long
Arctic night,
The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern light.
* * * * * * * * *