Not expecting an alerte, the whole of his numerous and brilliant army lay intrenched among the fertile fields and pastures of the Flemings, whose thick hedges, solid walls, and comfortable houses, were cut down, torn up and overthrown without ceremony to render the position more secure.
The post occupied by the Scottish officers was near the Senne, a slow and sluggish river. The sun had set, and far over the long perspective of the level landscape, that in some parts withdrew to the extreme horizon, shone the red departing flush of the last evening many would behold on earth. In some places the river was reddened by the gleam of the distant fires, whose flickering chain marked out the camp of Luxembourg; the higher eminences were covered by woods and orchards, from which the evening wind came laden with the rich perfume of the summer blossom. Save the hum of the extended camp all was still round Steinkirke, and where the exiled cavaliers were bivouacked there was little more heard than the monotonous ripple of the Senne, as it flowed past its willow shaded banks on its way to the northern sea.
The Scottish exiles were always more merry than usual on the eve of a battle, for it freed many from a life of humiliation and hardship, to which they deemed an honourable death a thousand times preferable. At times an expression of stern joy, of ghastly merriment, at others of deep abstraction pervaded the little group, as they clustered round the fire that blazed in a little alcove formed by an orchard on the river side. There their arms were piled, and they rolled from hand to hand a keg of Hollands, to which they had helped themselves at the devastation of the Flandrian château de Senne. Afar off, above the village spire of Steinkirke, the silver moon rose broadly and resplendently to light the wide and fertile landscape with its glory. The Senne and Tender brightened like two floods of flowing crystal, and the willows that drooped over them seemed the work of magic, as their dewy leaves glittered in the rays of the summer moon.
The stern hearts of that melancholy band were soothed by the beauty of the scenery, the seclusion of their tentless bivouac, the softness of the Flemish moonlight, and a song that Finland sang completed the effect of the place and time. He reclined upon his knapsack, and his fine features, which long privation and toil had sharpened and attenuated, flushed and reddened as he sang of his love that was far away, and felt his brave heart expand with the dear and long cherished hopes and memories her image stirred within it.
"Maxweltoun Braes are bonnie,
Where early fa's the dew;
And blue-eyed Annie Laurie
Gave me her promise true.
Gave me her promise true,
That never forgot shall be;
And for my bonnie Annie Laurie,
I would lay me down and dee.
"Her locks are like the sunshine,
Her breast is like the swan;
Her hand is like the snawdrift,
And mine her waist micht span.
But oh! that promise true!
Will ne'er be forgot by me,
And for my blue-eyed Annie Laurie,
I would lay me down and dee!"
This famous song, which, with its beautiful air, is so chaste and pleasing, and still so much admired in Scotland, poor Finland in his chivalric spirit had composed, to lighten the toil of many a long and arduous march, and now, inspired by the love and the fond recollections that trembled in his heart, he slowly sang the last verse with great tenderness and pathos.
"Like dew on the gowan lying,
Is the fa' of her fairy feet;
And like wind in summer sighing,
Her voice is low and sweet.
But O that promise true!
Makes her all the world to me;
And for my bonnie Annie Laurie,
I'd lay me down and dee."
Every word seemed to come from his overcharged heart, and as he sang the beautiful melody silence and sadness stole over the listening group. Softened by the dialect and the music of their fatherland, every heart was melted and every eye grew moist; the red camp fires and the shining waters of the Senne, the white tents of Luxembourg, the woodlands and orchards of Steinkirke passed away, and Scotland's hoary hills and pathless vallies rose before them, for their eyes and hearts were in the land from which they were expatriated for ever.
It was the morning of the 24th of July, and in unclouded splendour the sun shone from the far horizon upon the tented camp of Luxembourg, on the standards waving and arms glittering within the rudely and hastily constructed entrenchments of the great and veteran engineer the Chevalier Antoine de Ville. Like bright snowy clouds the morning vapour curled upwards from the sedges of the Senne, and the dewy foliage of the woods, and rolling lazily along the plain, shrouded everything in a thick and gause-like veil of white obscurity, which the rays of the sun edged with the hue of gold. Under cover of this, although the French knew it not, the entire force of the allied nations, led by William of England, were coming rapidly on in two dense columns, intent on avenging the disgraces they had endured at Namur. Luxembourg lay within his bannered pavilion on a bed of sickness, and neither he nor his soldiers were aware of the foe's approach until the Prince of Wirtemburg, at the head of ten battalions of English, Dutch, and Danes, drove back his outposts on the right, making a furious attack on the camp, which instantly became a scene of greater confusion than King Agramont's.