vice and depravity unutterable.

History relates that though food was scarce and light hearts hard to
find, at the birth of Sarah Twig there was no dearth of these
commodities. The snow was on the ground, Follygob says--the woods and
coppices and hills lay slumbering beneath a glistening white mantle.
What a mind! To have written those words! It was undoubtedly Follygob's
artistic style and phraseology that branded him once and for all as the
master-chronicler of his time.

Sarah Twig was born in the east wing, a lofty room which can be viewed
to this day by all true lovers of historical architecture. To describe
it adequately is indeed difficult. Some say there was a bed in it and an
early Norman window; others have it that there was no bed but a late
Gothic fireplace; while a few outstanding writers insist that there was
nothing at all in the room but a very old Roman washstand.[9]

The night of Sarah's birth was indeed a wild one--snow and sleet eddied
and swirled around the massive structure destined to harbour one whose
radiant beauty was to be a byword in all Europe. The wind, so Follygob
with his incomparable style tells us, lashed itself to a livid fury
against the sturdy Ffraddle turrets and mullions, whilst outside beyond
the keep and raised drawbridge the beacons and camp fires stained the
frost-laden air with vivid streaks of red and yellow--colours which
formed the background of the Ffraddle coat of arms, thus presenting an
omen to the startled inhabitants which history relates they were not
slow to recognise.

Bloodworthy describes for us the plan by which Lord Ffraddle was to
acquaint the village with the sex of the child. If it were a boy, red
fire was to be burnt on the south turret, and if a girl, green fire was
to be burnt on the north turret; but unfortunately, he goes on to tell
us, owing to some misadventure blue fire was firmly burnt on all the
turrets. Imagine the horror of the superstitious populace! Some left the
country never to return, crying aloud that a chameleon had been born to
their beloved chatelaine!

Of Sarah's youth historians tell us little. She was, apart from her
beauty, a very knowing child. Often when missing from the
banqueting-hall she would be discovered in the library reading and
studying the political works of the period.[10] Often Lord Ffraddle was
known to remark in his usual witty way, "In sooth, the child will soon
have as much knowledge as her father," a sally wh