The triumph of the parliamentary cause still further affected Boynton's fortunes; yet, when some years after he knew that the sons of his royal master were fugitives in a foreign land, and in pecuniary distress, he did not hesitate to impoverish himself in order to minister to their necessities; trusting to Providence and his own exertions for his immediate wants, and to the re-establishment of the monarchy and the royal gratitude for his future fortune.
Colonel Boynton had lived to see the son of the First Charles ascend the throne; but his just expectations, with regard to his own fortune, had not been realized. Too proud to present himself to the royal notice to claim the reward of his services, and the return of his advances, when he thought that gratitude required he should be sought out, he languished, with his daughter, who had now grown up to be a beautiful maiden, neglected and unnoticed in a condition not many degrees removed from absolute want; struggling for the means of existence, and cherishing each hour increased feelings of bitterness against the king and the court.
It was with Colonel Boynton that Rochester now took up his abode, nor was it long before he recognized the heroic soldier of former times; and wild, reckless and dissipated as Rochester was, he could not help deeply sympathizing with the condition of Boynton, and determining to assist in having justice done to him. But from the Colonel himself he met with an impediment he had not expected; for when, in his assumed character, (Rochester did not disclose himself,) he suggested the king's ignorance of his existence and urged him to present himself to the monarch's notice, the old soldier unhesitatingly and indignantly refused, alleging proudly, that it was not for him personally to quicken the king's memory, adding, that if his services could be so easily forgotten, he was satisfied they should forever remain in oblivion.
Notwithstanding this unexpected obstinacy the earl resolved to serve the veteran and his motherless child, and he conceived a plot at the same time, by which he purposed making the colonel's history subservient to his design of outwitting the Merry Monarch.
CHAPTER IV.
A fortnight had hardly elapsed since the retirement of Rochester from court, when the reputation of a German doctor—said to be a wonderful astrologist—began to be generally noised about. He had located himself, on his arrival, in an obscure corner of the city of London, and his practice was at first confined to valets, waiting-maids, and such like persons; but so astounding and veracious had been his disclosures to these, that his fame rapidly reached the upper circles, and aroused the curiosity of the lords and ladies of the court. No sooner had he obtained this run of custom than he became a made man, with every prospect of a speedy fortune before him; for the displays of his art, with which he had petrified his more humble patrons, carried no less astonishment amongst the more fashionable ones, who at first affected to disbelieve in it, and who originally sought only to while away the tedium of an idle hour by laughing at the grossness of his impositions. But he had overwhelmed them with consternation by his knowledge, and his information of the intrigues with which they were all more or less connected; he covered them with confusion for themselves, at the same time that they could not withhold their admiration of his skill. He was quickly esteemed a wonderful man, to whom all hidden things were open, and who could decipher the pages of the past and future as readily as he could read the events which were transpiring around him.
Now to pretend that any supernatural powers had been displayed by the learned astrologer, Doctor Herman Von Lieber, (for that was the name under which this tenth wonder suffered himself to be known,) would, perhaps, be going too far; though it was certain that he possessed a knowledge of persons, and of the history of individuals who sought him, that was really startling; and if we consider that the development of personal matters of scandal, which we thought confined to our own breasts, is more apt to astound us than effects which are positively inexplicable and beyond the reach of human ken, we will not be surprised at the celebrity which our astrologer suddenly acquired.
All the court was in commotion at his disclosures, and the royal curiosity had been excited.
Late one afternoon the Chevalier de Grammont proposed to the king the idea of disguising themselves and paying a visit to the astrologer, who had created so great a sensation; and the monarch, who was anxious that the time until evening—when he, with the chevalier, had a new adventure to inspire them—should pass rapidly away, consented readily to the suggestion.
At the residence of the astrologer they found all the arrangements of the most singular character. They were met at the door by a couple of Ethiopeans, fantastically dressed, who conducted them, without question, through a suit of dim-looking apartments to one which would have been quite dark, had its gloom not been relieved by a few small antique lamps, whose light barely sufficed to disclose the necromantic arrangements of the room and the untranslatable hieroglyphics around.