About twelve months thereafter, claiming the fulfilment of his father’s promise, he joined himself to the company that his friend and captain Hilary Rawdon was raising for service under King Henry of Navarre, whose fortunes were at that time at a turning point. King Henry III, his cousin, had fallen to the assassin’s knife, and Henry of Navarre should then have ascended the throne of France; but he was of the Huguenot party, and the Catholic League was bent upon crushing the Huguenots and excluding Henry from the enjoyment of his heritage. The army of the League, commanded by the Duke of Mayenne, held Paris; and Henry, desiring to put an end to the religious struggle that rent France asunder, and to make himself master of a united kingdom, saw himself constrained to fight for his crown. His army was choice and sound, but small, and in his extremity he sought the help of Queen Elizabeth, who sent him aid in money and men, and permitted gentlemen to enlist voluntarily under his flag. Many flocked to him, both as upholding his rightful cause, and from the love of adventure, and hatred of the Spaniards, with whom the Leaguers were in alliance. At that time my grandfather, his age being but eighteen, was moved rather by the latter considerations than by the former, though in after years the justice of a cause held ever the foremost place in his mind. Henry of Navarre had broken up the siege of Paris and withdrawn with his army into Normandy, hoping thereby to tempt the Duke of Mayenne to follow him, and so enforce him to a decisive battle. Mayenne, on his side, issuing forth from the city, had sworn to drive the Bearnais into the sea, or to bring him back in chains. Such was the posture of affairs when that adventure befell my grandfather which I set down as he told it me, as now follows. *THE SECOND PART* *CHRISTOPHER RUDD’S ADVENTURE IN FRANCE, AND HIS BORROWING OF THE WHITE PLUME OF HENRY OF NAVARRE* [Illustration: headpiece to Second Part] *I* When I survey the backward of my life, and con over its accidents and adventures, my thoughts are drawn as by a magnet to one point of time—the moment when, through mirk and darkness, benighted in a strange place, I saw the glimmer of a light. ’Twas as foul a night as ever I saw: the sky black as Erebus; the wind howling like unnumbered poor lost souls; the rain, that smote me full in the face as I rode, stinging my flesh as each particular drop were a barb of fire. I pulled my cloak about me, and bent low over the pommel, to gain some shelter from the storm; but little comfort had I thereby, for the rain beat in betwixt my neck and the collar, and, moreover, my horse’s hoofs cast up a plentiful bespattering of mud from the sodden road.