nine o'clock in the morning
Dame Nature was just donning her variegated gown of rustic-brown , while fitful airs from the realms of Jack Frost were painting the wild roses and forest leaves in cardinal hue , and the blackbird , thrush and musical nightingale flew low and sang hoarse , but continually , in their assemblages for migration to lands of sun and flowers . From Kenilworth to Coventry the rural scenery is as various and beautiful as visions of a dream , and the undulating landscape by hill and dale , field and forest , river , marge , cottage , hall , church and castle , grouping themselves in shifting pictures of beauty and grandeur , where lofty elms and sycamores rise and bend their willowy arms to the passing breeze , indelibly impresses the beholder with a splendid kaleidoscopic view of English hospitality and agricultural cultivation . The tall turrets of monasteries , castles and soaring church spires of Coventry looked luminous in the morning sunshine , while the brazen tongues of century bells rolled their mellifluous matin tones in voluminous welcome to the great multitude of revelers within her embattled walls and hospitable homes . Promptly at nine o'clock in the morning , in the Leicester Park , twenty-five accoutered long bow men , in archery uniform , took their stand before the bull 's eye targets two hundred yards away . At the words `` draw , '' `` aim '' and `` fly '' the whizzing arrows centered and shivered in the oak targets , and none hit the bull 's but Will Shakspere of Stratford , who was proclaimed winner of the first prize , an ox , a barrel of sack and butt of wine , with the privilege of kissing every girl in the county . The entire day was spent in all kinds of sports , and with roasts , joints , bread , pudding , sack , ale , gin , brandy and whiskey , the revelers did not break up until daylight , when all were laid under the table but William and his friends Burbage , Condell and Dick Field , who had come away from his printing house in London to witness one of the greatest rural sports of England . Although Stratford was not a day 's walk from Coventry , William and his friends did not succeed in getting back for three days , and often they traveled by the light of the moon believing it was the sun in midday splendor .