"Christmas gift!" shouted a party of lads and women, rushing upon the
Jew. "Christmas gift! You are caught, Issachar. Give us a present, old
miser!"

It was the custom in that old settled country that whoever should be
earliest up, and say "Christmas gift!" to others, should receive some
little token in farthings or kind.

"Bah!" answered the Jew. "Look in yonder, where the best of your
religion lie, perished by your inhumanity, and behold your Christmas
gift to them!"

There, where no friendly feet but those of negroes and slaves had
entered for months, the strengthening morning showed a young wife,
almost white, and the most beautiful of her type, with comely
features, and eyes and hair that the proudest white beauty might envy.
The gauntness of death had scarcely diminished those charms which had
brought the pride of the world's esteem and the prudence of religion
to her feet, and lifted her to virtuous matrimony, only to banish her
lover from the hearthstones of his race and make them both outcasts,
the poorest of the creatures of God, even on Chincoteague. A slight
sense of self-accusation touched the bystanders.

"He was a good preacher," said one, "and I was converted under him. He
baptized my children. That he should have married a darkey!"

"She was a pious girl," added another, "and from her youth up was in
temptation, which she resisted, like a white woman. That she should
have ruined this preacher!"