IV.—THE LEGEND OF GENERAL AGNEW.
A singular legend is told in relation to General Agnew. Tradition states,
that on the eventful morn, as he led the troops onward through the town, a
singular change was noted in his appearance. His cheeks were pale as
death, his compressed lip trembled with a nervous movement, and his eyes
glared hither and thither with a strange wild glance.
He turned to the aid-de-camp at his side, and said with a ghastly smile,
that this day's work would be his last on earth, that this battle-field would
be the last he should fight, that it became him to look well at the gallant
array of war, and share in the thickest of the fight, for in war and in fight
should his hand this day strike its last and dying blow.
And tradition states that as his column neared the Mennonist grave-yard,[2]
a man of strange and wild aspect, clad in the skins of wild beasts,
with scarred face and unshaven beard, came leaping over the grave-yard
wall, and asked a soldier of the British column, with an idiotic smile whether
that gallant officer, riding at the head of the men, was the brave General
Grey, who had so nobly routed the rebels at Paoli?
The soldier replied with a peevish oath that yonder officer was General
Grey, and he pointed to General Agnew as he spoke.
The strange man said never a word, but smiled with a satisfied look and
sprang over the grave-yard wall, and as he sprang, a bullet whistled past the
ear of General Agnew, and a thin column of blue smoke wound upward
from the grave-yard wall.
The General turned and smiled. His officers would have searched the
grave-yard for the author of the shot, but a sound broke on their ears from
the road above, and presently the clatter of hoofs and the clamor of swords
came thundering through the mist.
