The Hindered Hand; or, The Reign of the Repressionist. Sutton E. Griggs
Earl.
"By the way," said Ensal, "I am glad that I met you. A-a friend of mine from New York, a Miss Merlow, Tiara Merlow, is in the city. I wish you to pay her a call with me to-morrow evening. May I make the engagement?"
Earl dropped his head in meditation. His brain was exceedingly active. Beneath this apparently simple proposal of Ensal's lay hidden many possibilities.
Ensal and Earl represented two types in the Negro race, the conservative and the radical. They both stood for the ultimate recognition of the rights of the Negro as an American citizen, but their methods were opposite. They intuitively assumed, it seemed, opposite sides on every question that arose pertaining to the race, and championed their respective sides with much warmth and vigor. Yet they remained friends, were great admirers of each other, and lived each in the hope of converting the other to his way of thinking.
On the question of racial connection Ensal was really proud of the fact that he was a Negro, and felt that had he been entrusted with the determining of his racial affinity he would have chosen membership in the Negro race. Earl accepted the fact of his connection with the Negro race as a matter of course, had no desire to alter the relationship, and felt neither dejection nor elation on account thereof.
Ensal felt that the acceptance of slavery on the part of the Negro in preference to extermination was evidence of adaptability to conditions that assured the presence of the Negro on the earth in the final wind up of things, in full possession of all the advantages that time and progress promise. Earl rather admired the Indian and felt that the dead Indian refusing to be enslaved was a richer heritage to the world than the yielding and thriving Negro.
Ensal held that the course of the Negro during the Civil War in caring for the wives and children of the men fighting for their enslavement was a tribute to their humanity and would prove an invaluable asset in all future reckonings. While thoroughly approving of the Negro's protection of the women and children of the whites from violence, Earl was sorry that the thousand torches which Grady said would have disbanded the Southern armies were not lighted. Ensal deprecated all talk and thought of the sword as the final arbiter of the troubles between the races. Earl had his dreams—and his plans as well.
The procuring of the full recognition of the rights of the Negro was such a passion with Ensal that Earl relied upon it to finally bring him from the ranks of the conservatives to the radicals. Earl was fully convinced within himself that all of Ensal's hopes of a satisfactory, peaceful adjustment of matters were to be dashed to the ground, and knowing how thoroughly Ensal's soul was committed to the advancement of the race, he really expected Ensal to develop into the leader of the radicals. But this looming into view of a young woman, a friend of Ensal's, was liable, Earl thought, to complicate matters.
Earl had all along rejoiced in Ensal's determination to remain unmarried, fearing that family life might add to his conservatism. This accounts for the fact that Ensal's simple invitation to call on a Miss Tiara Merlow on the following evening so deeply affected Earl.
"Yes, yes, I'll go," said Earl slowly, almost as much to himself as to Ensal.
Ensal knew Earl so well that he could have told him the character of his (Earl's) thoughts.
On the following evening as Ensal and Earl sat in the parlor of the Crawford's chatting, Tiara parted the curtains shutting off an adjoining room, and stepped in. Her hair was arranged in two rich black braids tied up so as to extend only to her shoulders. The hair on the front part of her head was allowed to come forward, but not enough to forbid glimpses of a well rounded, beautiful forehead. As she stood there, symmetrical in form, just large and tall enough to be commanding in appearance, Ensal again inwardly declared that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, heard of or dreamed about. Her eyes would have made a face of less regular features appear beautiful. As for Tiara, they made her beauty simply dazzling.
When Earl's wits, swept away by Tiara's beauty, slowly returned, it dawned upon him to his great astonishment that he was face to face with the young woman who had ridden into Almaville with Ensal and himself.
"If she was Ensal's friend, why did he not make himself known to her on the train?" asked Earl of himself. But this query was soon dislodged from his mind by one of far more interest to him, to wit: "Is it not likely that I may utilize this young woman as a means of bringing to me a second glimpse of that girl that paid us a visit from the coach for whites?"
Earl was introduced in due form and joined in the conversation now and then; but it was evident to Ensal that he was, for some cause, ill at ease. Tiara and Ensal, however, enjoyed the evening, each intently weighing the remarks of the other.
They say that Cupid is blind. This may be true of him at some stage of the proceedings, but when he is looking for a spot at which to let fly an arrow, he could play schoolmaster to Argus, of the many eyes.
Ensal and Earl departed, Ensal going home to live the evening over through the night, while Earl called upon Leroy Crutcher and engaged him to use Tiara Merlow as a clue to trace the unknown young woman.
"Is this honorable, this forming an alliance with Leroy Crutcher, this placing of a surveillance, as it were, on the movements of my friend's friend?"
These questions came to Earl more than once that night and the answer of the hot blood of his soul was: "Conditions have made me an outlaw among my kind. Rubbish aside, am I not as much of an Anglo-Saxon as any of them? Does not my soul respond to those things and those things only to which their souls respond? He that is without the law shall be judged without the law."
Judged! That is a solemn and sometimes an awful affair with nature.
CHAPTER VII.
Officers Of The Law.
"No need of clouding up; you can't rain," said the white boy. "Don't you know the law? The school board said for you niggers to get to school a half hour before we white children. What do you mean by hanging around and going to school on our time?"
"It is none of your business," said the Negro.
"I guess you had better skip, Mr. Coon," said the white boy. The group now sat down on the curbing, while the Negro walked away. The white boys gathered stones preparatory for battle.
The race problem had at last reached the childhood of the two races. In former days the children of the whites and the Negroes had played together, and ties of friendship were formed that often survived the changes of later years when one playmate became a master and his fellow became his servant. But that friendly commingling of other days was practically all gone now, and clashes between the white and Negro children became so frequent that the school authorities had decreed separate hours for the opening and closing of the schools of the two races, so as to lessen the friction as much as possible.
"Fly, you black face nigger, you," shouted a white boy.
"My face ain't near as black as your heart," rejoined the Negro, adroitly dodging the stones thrown by the white boys. The Negro threw his books to the sidewalk and soon had a handful of missiles. The rock battle was now on in earnest, the white boys feeling sure that their superior numbers would soon put the lone warrior to flight. The Negro entered into the battle with his whole soul, and was vigorous and alert. It was his idea that the injuring of one or two of his opponents would bring the battle to a close. A policeman