Flight to the forest

Because Rafe had never known his father he had given all his love and admiration to his grandfather, Gregory Trundle, who had once acted in London and had known William Shakespeare. While Rafe was still very young, he promised himself that he too would, one day, become a playactor. But circumstances appear to be against him, for this is the time of the Commonwealth in England. Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans have closed down all the playhouses.Gregory, however, looks forward to the day when the King and his players will be restored to favor, when the old days will return. He keeps himself in readiness and, at the same time, trains Rafe to be a player, too.When Rafe's uncle, innkeeper of "The Ram", dies, Aunt Nags forces Rafe and his family to move on. Gregory Trundle leads Rafe and his sister Gilia, and Margery their mother, away from the little port on the Sussex coast into the forest where the iron industry is plied as it has been since before the days of the Romans. There he finds them a playhouse of their own in a grove of holly trees.But, because Rafe has to support himself, he learns another trade and finds himself torn between two loyalties ... a conflict that is, in the end, resolved only through disappointment and hatred, through violence and death.