There is but the one cause for all us countrymen." But that afternoon as he walked abroad in his cornlands he saw a portent.

A heron rose out of the shallows, and a harrier-hawk swooped to the pounce, but the long bird flopped securely into the western sky, and the hawk dropped at his feet, dead but with no mark of a wound.
"Here be marvels," said Jehan, and with that there came on him the foreknowledge of fate, which in the brave heart wakes awe, but no fear.
He stood silent for a time and gazed over his homelands.

The bere was shaking white and gold in the light evening wind; in the new orchard he had planted the apples were reddening; from the edge of the forest land rose wreaths of smoke where the thralls were busy with wood-clearing.
There was little sound in the air, but from the steading came the happy laughter of a child.

Jehan stood very still, and his wistful eyes drank the peace of it.
"Non nobis, Domine," he said, for a priest had once had the training of him.

"But I leave that which shall not die." He summoned his wife and told her of the coming of the Crane.