His son, dark like his father, who made his first diffident pilgrimages in the sunny close where the pigeons cooed, was not more thirled to English soil.
They were quiet years in that remote place, for Aelward over at Galland had made his peace with the King.

But when the little Jehan was four years old the tides of war lapped again to the forest edges.

One Hugo of Auchy, who had had a usurer to his father and had risen in an iron age by a merciless greed, came a-foraying from the north to see how he might add to his fortunes.

Men called him the Crane, for he was tall and lean and parchment-skinned, and to his banner resorted all malcontents and broken men.

He sought to conduct a second Conquest, making war on the English who still held their lands, but sparing the French manors.
The King's justice was slow-footed, and the King was far away, so the threatened men, banded together to hold their own by their own might.
Aelward brought the news from Galland that the Crane had entered their borders.