October, shone royally on Richard's fourteenth birthday.

The brown beechwoods and golden birches glowed to a brilliant sun.

Banks of moveless cloud hung about the horizon, mounded to the west, where slept the wind.

Promise of a great day for Raynham, as it proved to be, though not in the manner marked out.
Already archery-booths and cricketing-tents were rising on the lower grounds towards the river, whither the lads of Bursley and Lobourne, in boats and in carts, shouting for a day of ale and honour, jogged merrily to match themselves anew, and pluck at the lining laurel from each other's brows, line manly Britons.

The whole park was beginning to be astir and resound with holiday cries.