thousand
men. "When your enemies blunder, {271} don't interrupt them," Napoleon
is reported to have advised. If some one had not blundered badly now,
it might have been a second Ticonderoga with Wolfe; but some one did
blunder most tragically.

Montcalm had come from the trenches above Beauport, where he had been
guarding against Saunders' landing, and he had ordered hot tea and beer
served to the troops, when he happened to look across the St. Charles
River towards Quebec. It had been cloudy, but the sun had just burst
out; and there, standing in the morning light, were the English in
battle array, red coat and tartan kilt, grenadier and Highlander, in
the distance a confused mass of color, which was not the white uniform
of the French.

"This is a serious business," said Montcalm hurriedly to his aide.
Then, spurs to his big black horse, he was galloping furiously along
the Beauport road, over the resounding bridge across the St. Charles,
up the steep cobblestone streets that lead from Lower to Upper Town,
and out by the St. Louis road to the Plains of Abraham. In Quebec all
was confusion. _Who_ had given the order for the troops to move out
against the English without waiting for Bougainville to come from Cape
Rouge? But there they were, huddling, disorderly columns that crowded
on each other, filing out of the St. Louis and St. John Gates, with a
long string of battalions following Montcalm up from the St. Charles.
And Ramezay, who was commandant of the city, refused to send out part
of his troops; and Vaudreuil, who was at Beauport, delayed to come; and
though Montcalm waited till ten o'clock, Bougainville did not come up
from Cape Rouge with his three thousand men. Easy to criticise and say
Montcalm should have waited till Bougainville and Vaudreuil came. He
could _not_ wait, for Wolfe's position cut his forces in two, and the
army was without supplies. With his four thousand five hundred men he
accepted fate's challenge.

Bagpipes shrilling, English flags waving to the wind, the French
soldiers shouting riotously, the two armies moved towards each other.
Then the English halted, silent, motionless {272} statues. The men
were refreshed, for during the four hours' wait from daylight, Wolfe
had permitted them to rest on the grassed plain. The French came
bounding forward, firing as they ran, and bending down to reload. The
English waited till the French were but forty yards away. "They were
not to t