The president, in his quality of clergyman, had, late in the preceding
afternoon, been called to visit an aged female who was supposed to be at
the point of death. Her habitation was at the distance of several miles
from Harley College; so that it was nightfall before Dr. Melmoth stood at
her bedside. His stay had been lengthened beyond his anticipation, on
account of the frame of mind in which he found the dying woman; and, after
essaying to impart the comforts of religion to her disturbed intellect, he
had waited for the abatement of the storm that had arisen while he was
thus engaged. As the evening advanced, however, the rain poured down in
undiminished cataracts; and the doctor, trusting to the prudence and sure-
footedness of his steed, had at length set forth on his return. The
darkness of the night, and the roughness of the road, might have appalled
him, even had his horsemanship and his courage been more considerable than
they were; but by the special protection of Providence, as he reasonably
supposed (for he was a good man, and on a good errand), he arrived safely
as far as Hugh Crombie's inn. Dr. Melmoth had no intention of making a
stay there; but, as the road passed within a very short distance, he saw
lights in the windows, and heard the sound of song and revelry. It
immediately occurred to him, that these midnight rioters were, probably,
some of the young men of his charge; and he was impelled, by a sense of
duty, to enter and disperse them. Directed by the voices, he found his
way, with some difficulty, to the apartment, just as Hugh concluded his
first stanza; and, amidst the subsequent applause, his entrance had been
un-perceived.

There was a silence of a moment's continuance after the discovery of Dr.
Melmoth, during which he attempted to clothe his round, good-natured face
in a look of awful dignity. But, in spite of himself, there was a little
twisting of the corners of his mouth, and a smothered gleam in his eye.