Dame Humphreys had another motive for her visit. Like all the villagers,
she was passionately fond of Eustace: she had seen a recruiting party
enter the town, and heard them inquire for the young man whom the
Justice meant to impress. In her eagerness to defend him, she excited a
mob of women to scold and insult the party, while she flew to the
rectory to give him notice to escape. But for the precautions taken
during the night, her kindness would have been ineffectual; for the
soldiers speedily dispersed their feeble assailants, and drew themselves
up in order before the rectory. The lieutenant who commanded them,
required to speak with Dr. Beaumont; and, in a tone of authorised
insolence, bade him give up the son of the delinquent, whom he
harboured.
The Doctor had spent the night in devotion, and came from his oratory
clad in that celestial panoply which is proof against the terrors of
military array. Calm as a Christian hero who felt himself called to
sustain the character of a soldier of truth, he answered, "The youth you
inquire for is my nephew, left in my care by his father, and I should
certainly protect him with my life if he were now in my house, but he
has left it.
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