Jehan's pickets found Hugo of Auchy by the Sheen brook and brought back tidings.Thereupon a subtle plan was made.By day and night the invaders'
camp was kept uneasy; there would be sudden attacks, which died down after a few blows; stragglers disappeared, scouts never returned; and when a peasant was brought in and forced to speak, he told with scared face a tale of the great mustering of desperate men in this or that quarter.The Crane was a hardy fighter, but the mystery baffled him, and he became cautious, and--after the fashion of his kind credulous.Bit by bit Jehan shepherded him into the trap he had prepared.He had but one man to the enemy's six, and must drain that enemy's strength before he struck.Meantime the little steadings went up in flames, but with every blaze seen in the autumn dusk the English temper grew more stubborn.They waited confidently on the reckoning.
It came on a bleak morning when the east wind blew rain and fog from the sea.The Crane was in a spit of open woodland, with before him and on either side deep fenland with paths known only to its dwellers.Then Jehan struck.He drove his enemy to the point of the dry ground, and thrust him into the marshes.Not since the time of the Danes had the land known such a slaying.The refuse of France and the traitor English who had joined them went down like sheep before wolves.When the Lord Ivo arrived in the late afternoon, having ridden hot-speed from the south coast when he got the tidings, he found little left of the marauders save the dead on the land and the scum of red on the fen pools.