NORA MCCARTHY
[In The Gray Jacket, pages 26-29.]
Norah McCarthy won by her courage the name of the “Jennie Deans” of the West. She lived in the interior of Missouri—a little, pretty, black-eyed girl, with a soul as huge as a mountain, and a form as frail as a fairy’s, and the courage and pluck of a buccaneer into the bargain. Her father was an old man—a secessionist. She had but a single brother, just growing from boyhood to youthhood, but sickly and lame. The family had lived in Kansas during the troubles of ’57, when Norah was a mere girl of fourteen or thereabouts. But even then her beauty, wit and devil-may-care spirit were known far and wide; and many were the stories told along the border of her sayings and doings. Among other charges laid at her door it is said that she broke all the hearts of the young bloods far and wide, and tradition goes even so far as to assert that, like Bob Acres, she killed a man once a week, keeping a private church-yard for the purpose of decently burying her dead. Be this as it may, she was then, and is now, a dashing, fine-looking, lively girl, and a prettier heroine than will be found in a novel, as will be seen if the good-natured reader has a mind to follow us to the close of this sketch.
Not long after the Federals came into her neighborhood, and after they had forced her father to take the oath, which he did partly because he was a very old man, unable to take the field, and hoped thereby to save the security of his household, and partly because he could not help himself; not long after these two important events in the history of our heroine, a body of men marched up one evening, while she was on a visit to a neighbor’s, and arrested her sickly, weak brother, bearing him off to Leavenworth City, where he was lodged in the military guard-house.
It was nearly night before Norah reached home. When she did so, and discovered the outrage which had been perpetrated, and the grief of her old father, her rage knew no bounds. Although the mists were falling and 193 the night was closing in, dark and dreary, she ordered her horse to be resaddled, put on a thick surtout, belted a sash round her waist, and sticking a pair of ivory-handled pistols in her bosom, started off after the soldiers. The post was many miles distant. But that she did not regard. Over hill, through marsh, under cover of the darkness, she galloped on to the headquarters of the enemy. At last the call of a sentry brought her to stand, with a hoarse “Who goes there?”
“No matter,” she replied. “I wish to see Colonel Prince, your commanding officer, and instantly, too.”
Somewhat awed by the presence of a young female on horseback at that late hour, and perhaps struck by her imperious tone of command, the Yankee guard, without hesitation, conducted her to the fortifications, and thence to the quarters of the colonel commanding, with whom she was left alone.
“Well, madam,” said the Federal officer, with bland politeness, “to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“Is this Colonel Prince?” replied the brave girl, quietly.
“It is, and you are—”
“No matter. I have come here to inquire whether you have a lad by the name of McCarthy a prisoner?”
“There is such a prisoner.”
“May I ask why he is a prisoner?”
“Certainly! For being suspected of treasonable connection with the enemy.”
“Treasonable connection with the enemy! Why the boy is sick and lame. He is, besides, my brother; and I have come to ask his immediate release.”
The officer opened his eyes; was sorry he could not comply with the request of so winning a supplicant; and must “really beg her to desist and leave the fortress.”
“I demand his release,” cried she, in reply.
“That you cannot have. The boy is a rebel and a traitor, and unless you retire, madam, I shall be forced to arrest you on a similar suspicion.”
“Suspicion! I am a rebel and a traitor, too, if you 194 wish; young McCarthy is my brother, and I don’t leave this tent until he goes with me. Order his instant release or,”—here she drew one of the aforesaid ivory handles out of her bosom and levelled the muzzle of it directly at him—“I will put an ounce of lead in your brain before you can call a single sentry to your relief.”
A picture that!
There stood the heroic girl; eyes flashing fire, cheek glowing with earnest will, lips firmly set with resolution, and hand outstretched with a loaded pistol ready to send the contents through the now thoroughly frightened, startled, aghast soldier, who cowered, like blank paper before flames, under her burning stare.
“Quick!” she repeated, “order his release, or you die.”
It was too much. Prince could not stand it. He bade her lower her infernal weapon, for God’s sake, and the boy should be forthwith liberated.
“Give the order first,” she replied, unmoved.
And the order was given; the lad was brought out; and drawing his arm in hers, the gallant sister marched out of the place, with one hand grasping one of his, and the other holding her trusty ivory handle. She mounted her horse, bade him get up behind, and rode off, reaching home without accident before midnight.
Now that is a fact stranger than fiction, which shows what sort of metal is in our women of the much abused and traduced nineteenth century.