Gray-eyed Dorothy Vaughan and her dear, childhood friend Richard Heywood … they are beyond the simple joys of making play houses and caring for wild animals. She is 17, he, 19 … and new stirrings make themselves felt they can barely express. Yet it is a time of changes – when England, Ireland and Scotland are being torn asunder by a confrontation between church and state. The Lord of Strafford has been beheaded; with raised voices Milton and the Puritans cry for freedom … and the two young lovers find themselves pulled away from one another – while the very stones of Raglan Castle tremble!