Now it was not from her father that this regal young creature could have taken her resoluteness, though she may well have got from him some of the pride that went with it. There certainly must have been more pride than determination in Frederick Philipse, third lord of the manor, colonel in provincial 24 militia before the Revolution, graduate of King’s College, churchman, benefactor, gentleman of literary tastes; amiable, courtly, and so fat that he and his handsome wife could not comfortably ride in the same coach at the same time. But there was surely as much determination as pride in this gentleman’s great-grandfather, Vrederyck Flypse, descendant of a line of viscounts and keepers of the deer forests of Bohemia, Protestant victim of religious persecution in his own land, immigrant to New Amsterdam about 1650, and soon afterward the richest merchant in the province, dealer with the Indians, ship-owner in the East and West India trade, importer of slaves, leader in provincial politics and government, founder of Sleepy Hollow Church, probably a secret trafficker with Captain Kidd and other pirates, and owner by purchase of the territory that was erected by royal charter of William and Mary into the lordship and manor of Philipsburgh. The strength of will probably declined, while the pride throve, in transmission to Vrederyck’s son, Philip, who sowed wild oats, and went to the Barbadoes for his health and married the daughter of the English governor of that island. Philip’s son, Frederick, being born in a hot climate, and grandson of an English governor as well as of the great Flypse, would naturally have had great quantity of pride, whatever his stock of force, particularly as he became second lord of the manor at 25 the lordly age of four. And he could not easily have acquired humility in later life, as speaker of the provincial Assembly, Baron of the Exchequer, judge of the Supreme Court, or founder of St. John’s Church,—towards which graceful edifice was the daughter of his son, the third lord, directing her horse this wintry autumn evening. As for this third lord, he had been removed by the new Government to Connecticut for favoring the English rule, but, having received permission to go to New York for a short time, had evinced his fondness for the sweet and soft things of life by breaking his parole and staying in the city, under the British protection, thus risking his vast estate and showing himself a gentleman of anything but the courage now displayed by his daughter.
Elizabeth, therefore, must have derived her spirit, with a good measure of pride and a fair share (or more) of vanity, from her mother, though, thanks to that appreciation of personal comfort which comes with middle age, Madam Philipse’s high-spiritedness would no longer have displayed itself in dangerous excursions, nor was it longer equal to a contest with the fresher energy of Elizabeth. She was the daughter of Charles Williams, once naval officer of the port of New York, and his wife, who had been Miss Sarah Olivier. Thus came Madam Philipse honestly by the description, “imperious woman of fashion,” in which local history preserves her memory. 26 She was a widow of twenty-four when Colonel Philipse married her, she having been bereaved two years before of her first husband, Mr. Anthony Rutgers, the lawyer. She liked display, and her husband indulged her inclination without stint, receiving in repayment a good nursery-full of what used, in the good old days, to be called pledges of affection. Being the daughter of a royal office-holding Englishman, how could she have helped holding her head mighty high on receiving her elevation to the ladyship of Philipsburgh, and who shall blame her daughter and namesake, now within a stone’s throw of St. John’s parsonage and in full sight of the tree-bowered manorial home of her fathers, for holding hers, which was younger, a trifle higher?
Not many high-held heads of this or any other day are or were finer than that of Elizabeth Philipse was in 1778, or are set on more graceful figures. For all her haughtiness, she was not a very large person, nor yet was she a small one. She was neither fragile nor too ample. Her carriage made her look taller than she was. She was of the brown-haired, blue-eyed type, but her eyes were not of unusual size or surpassing lucidity, being merely clear, honest, steady eyes, capable rather of fearless or disdainful attention than of swift flashes or coquettish glances. The precision with which her features were outlined did not lessen the interest that her face had from her pride, 27 spirit, independence, and intelligence. She was, moreover, an active, healthy creature, and if she commanded the dratting of the wind, it was not as much because she was chilled by it as because it blew her cloak and impeded her progress. In fine, she was a beauty; else this historian would never have taken the trouble of unearthing from many places and piecing together the details of this fateful incident,—for if any one supposes that the people of this narrative are mere fictions, he or she is radically in error. They lived and achieved, under the names they herein bear; were as actual as the places herein mentioned,—as any of the numerous patriotic Americans who daily visit the genealogical shelves of the public libraries can easily learn, if they will spare sufficient time from the laudable task of hunting down their own ancestors. If this story is called a romance, that term is used here only as it is oft applied to actual occurrences of a romantic character. So the Elizabeth Philipse who, before crossing the Neperan to approach the manor-house, stopped in front of the snug parsonage at the roadside and directed Cuff to knock at the door, was as real as was then the parsonage itself.
Presently a face appeared furtively at one of the up-stairs windows. The eyes thereof, having dwelt for an instant on the mounted party shivering in the road, opened wide in amazement, and a minute later, 28 after a sound of key-turning and bolt-drawing, the door opened, and a good-looking lady appeared in the doorway, backed up by a servant and two pretty children who clung, half-curious, half-frightened, to the lady’s skirts.
“Why, Miss Elizabeth! Is it possible—”
But Elizabeth cut the speech of the astonished lady short.
“Yes, my dear Mrs. Babcock,—and I know how dangerous, and all that! And, thank you, I’ll not come in. I shall see you during the week. I’m going to the manor-house to stay awhile, and I wish my aunt to stay there with me, if you can spare her.”
“Why, yes,—of course,—but—here comes your aunt.”
“Why, Elizabeth, what in the world—”
She was a somewhat stately woman at first sight, was Elizabeth’s mother’s sister, Miss Sarah Williams; but on acquaintance soon conciliated and found to be not at all the formidable and haughty person she would have had people believe her; not too far gone in middle age, preserving, despite her spinsterhood, much of her bloom and many of those little roundnesses of contour which adorn but do not encumber.