The King Behind the King by Warwick Deeping

About sunset Fulk went up to Standard Hill and looked out over the forest. Spread below him, with all the great oaks burgeoning into bronze, was a shimmering sea of gold meeting a sky of amber, and from it rose the singing of a thousand birds. About the group of firs on Standard Hill the slanting sunlight struck upon the young green growth of the heather, and made it shine like the dust of emeralds scattered broadcast over the earth. The yews of Nutley hung like a thundercloud across a band of scarlet, and the distant hills were all soft greys and purples. The western sky was like the mysterious eyes of a woman flushed with love.

Fulk could see nothing stirring on the heathlands, and he turned back to the White Lodge in the valley. The day had passed quietly, and he judged that the wagon had reached Lewes town in safety, and that on the morrow Peter of Pippinford and his men would be back at the White Lodge. A frail smoke spiral went up from the louvre of the hall, and the whole valley was very still save for the singing of the birds in the oak woods on either side of the meadow. The grassland itself was a sheet of gold, and the old thorns by the great ditch were white with flower, and wondrous fragrant.