ong 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 wer