A Daughter of Israel by Fred M. White — Read

Though Speedwell's exhortation to silence was conceived in best intent, it proved to be of no avail. And as he lay through the night, watching the pallid stars fade from the infinite scroll of heaven, till morn came up from the east, like the outstretched wings of a bird, and the mast needles 'gan to line the morning mists, he travelled in imagination the old weary journey. The Jewish blood ran in his veins. That was the barrier between him and the Christian race. Moreover, Abraham's words had made a deep impression upon him. He, too, felt the mysterious tie of consanguinity which binds the chosen people together. And his mother had received the greatest wrong of all from a Gentile. Henceforth he was a Jew.

Idle Westport, standing out of doors in the morning sun--listless, sullen, discontented, with brooding hate lurking in every hollow eye and haggard cheek--heard the news. Some had gathered round the police court, that magnetic focus of attraction for the unemployed, deriving some scant comfort, as Rochefoucauld says, from the contemplation of other's misfortunes. Presently, passing through the idlers to the Magistrate's room, came Sir Percival Decie. Haughty and listless; clean, spotless, immaculate; as different to the common clay as man could be--and as he passed a murmur ran round, for the county magnate was far from popular; a common thing for a country gentleman who has a profound contempt for the masses and a passion for preserving game. A deadly foe of poachers, therefore.