Part 13 (2/2)

[35] The tories not only destroyed his property, but drove him into the woods, where he was often obliged to pa.s.s nights; and some of his escapes from captivity or death are said to have been almost miraculous.--He resumed his labors as teacher and pastor after the war; and continued to preach till his ninety-sixth year. He died in 1824, at the age of ninety-nine. His wife died the following year, in the eighty-seventh of her age.

In the fall of 1780, a ”way-worn and weary” stranger, bearing dispatches from Was.h.i.+ngton to Greene, stopped at her house and asked for supper and lodgings. Before he had eaten, the house began to be surrounded by tories, who were in pursuit of him. Mrs. Caldwell led him out at a back-door, unseen in the darkness, and ordered him to climb a large locust tree, and there remain till the house was plundered and the pursuers had departed. He did so. Mrs. Caldwell lost her property, but her calmness and prudence saved the express, and that was what most concerned the patriotic woman.

THE MOTHER OF RANDOLPH

She led me first to G.o.d; Her words and prayers were my young spirit's dew; For when she used to leave The fireside every eve, I knew it was for prayer that she withdrew.

PIERPONT.

The biographers of John Randolph mention the interesting fact that his mother taught him to pray. This all-important maternal duty made an impression on his heart. He lived at a period when skepticism was popular, particularly in some political circles in which he had occasion to mingle; and he has left on record his testimony in regard to the influence of his mother's religious instruction. Speaking of the subject of infidelity to an intimate friend, he once made the following acknowledgment:

”I believe I should have been swept away by the flood of French infidelity if it had not been for one thing--the remembrance of the time when my sainted mother used to make me kneel by her side, taking my little hands folded in hers, and cause me to repeat the Lord's Prayer.”

CORNELIA BEEKMAN.

The smallest worm will turn when trodden on, And doves will peck, in safeguard of their brood.

SHAKESPEARE.

The vaunts And menace of the vengeful enemy Pa.s.s like the gust, that roared and died away In the distant tree.

COLERIDGE.

Mrs. Cornelia Beekman was a daughter of Pierre Van Cortlandt, Lieutenant Governor of New York from 1777 to 1795; and she seems to have inherited her father's zeal for the rights of his country. She was born at the Cortlandt manor house, ”an old fas.h.i.+oned stone mansion situated on the banks of the Croton river,” in 1752; was married when about seventeen or eighteen, to Gerard G. Beekman; and died on the fourteenth of March, 1847. A few anecdotes will ill.u.s.trate the n.o.ble characteristics of her nature.[36]

[36] For a fuller account of her life, see the second volume of Mrs.

Ellet's Women of the Revolution, to which work we are indebted for the substance of these anecdotes.

When the British were near her residence, which was a short distance from Peekskill, a soldier entered the house one day and went directly to the closet, saying, in reply to a question she put to him, that he wanted some brandy. She reproved him for his boldness and want of courtesy, when he threatened to stab her with a bayonet. Unalarmed by his oath-charged threats--although an old, infirm negro was the only aid at hand--she in turn threatened him, declaring that she would call her husband and have his conduct reported to his commander. Her sterness and intrepidity, coupled with her threats, subdued the insolent coward, and, obeying her orders, he marched out of the house.

A party of tories, under command of Colonels Bayard and Fleming, once entered her house, and, with a great deal of impudence and in the most insulting tone, asked if she was not ”the daughter of that old rebel, Pierre Van Cortlandt?” ”I am the daughter of Pierre Van Cortlandt, but it becomes not such as you to call my father a rebel,” was her dauntless reply. The person who put the question now raised his musket, at which menacing act, she coolly reprimanded him and ordered him out of doors.

His heart melted beneath the fire of her eye, and, abashed, he sneaked away.

In one instance, a man named John Webb, better known at that time as ”Lieutenant Jack,” left in her charge a valise which contained a new suit of uniform and some gold. He stated he would send for it when he wanted it, and gave her particular directions not to deliver it to any one without a written order from himself or his brother Samuel. About two weeks afterwards, a man named Smith rode up to the door in haste, and asked her husband, who was without, for Lieutenant Jack's valise.

She knew Smith, and had little confidence in his _professed_ whig principles; so she stepped to the door and reminded her husband that it would be necessary for the messenger to show his order before the valise could be given up.

”You know me very well, Mrs. Beekman; and when I a.s.sure you that Lieutenant Jack sent me for the valise, you will not refuse to deliver it to me, as he is greatly in want of his uniform.”

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