A NICE SERVANT.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 128, 11 August 1871, Page 3

A NICE SERVANT.

Mr. George Augustus Sala relates in ' Belgravia' the story of a young housekeeper in search of a good servant. After many unpleasant experiences, the lady, whose name was Houselamb, engaged a certaiu EUen Catt, with the following results: — It happened when she had been with us about seven months —we never kept a servant so long before-that Mr. Houselauib being away in Paris on business, I went visiting a good deal, always leaving our nice servant, in whom 1 had the most implicit trust and confidence, at home.

It was one Sunday, and I was dining j with the Grigsby s (Mrs. Grigsby is a charming ..woman, but nothing to lo; k at, and has an absurd idea that she can write poetry). It was just as I was sitting down to dinner that 1 discovered I had rather hurried myself in dressing that morning —that 1 had left my gold vvatch and chain on my toilet table at home. They were very handsome ! trinkets, and had been presented to me not a fortnight before, by Mr. 1 louselamb, who was then just beginning to get on the world. I felt rather nervous at this discovery, and told the Grigs by» of it; adding, however, that I ought not to trouble mv mind about it, seeing that we had such a very Nice Servant. Mrs. Grigsby, who was always full of her poetry and nonsense, began to lisp out something about having "faith in one arother," but Mr. Grigsby, a thorough man of business, shook his head ai,d asked me where Our Nice Servaut came from ? I said the, workhouse. He shook his head again, and remarked that paupers were a very bad lot. I remembered the word of the matron to a similar effect; aud still 1 shrank from doubting the honesty of Ellen .Catt. Things passed off, hut I wa3 very nervous in the afternoon. It was 9.30 o'clock when I reached home. I let myself in with my latchkey—it had once beer Mr. Houselamb's, but I had taken it away from him, and never let him have it again, after that shocking affair of his deserting his house and home for the Garrick's Head. Passing softly into the hall, I heard the voice of some-body in the kitchen singing. The voice ,was so deep that at first it sounded, like a man's, and my mind at once jumped at the suspicion of followers ; but on listening a little longer, 1 was convinced that the singer was our Nice Servant. It was Sunday evening; but, O dear me ! it was no hymn that Ellen Catt was singing. So far a3 I can recollect, the words of her frightful song ran thus : " My flash man's in quod, And I'm the woman that's willin*; So, I'll muzzle a bloke tonight, And draav him of every shillinV Chorus (she sang this almost in a yell), " Tooral, looral, 100 ! What are wealth's possessions P Bless the cove we love. And blow the Middlesex Sessions!" I crept down stairs, more dead than alive, entered the kitchen, and this was the sight I saw. The candle was guttering down into the socket, and in front of the fire, wiih her feet on the fender, sat Our Nice Servant. There was a pewter pot containing something on the table, also a black bottle ; and —I shudder as I write the words — when Our Nice Servant had finished a verse of her song, she took a short black pipe off the table, and began to puff at it. " Ellen Catt!" I began, reproachfully. " Ellen Catt!" she repeated, with a long, bitter laugh. " Don't you Ellen Catt me, Missis ; I'm Tiger Bet—ask in the Blue-Anchor fields if I ain't. I've broken out, I have. Sit you down there and I'll make your flesh creep." The wretched Woman was evidently tipsy, but she made no violent gestures, merely swaying her head from side to side, and now and then slapping her hands on one or other of her knees. 1 thought 1 might get her to bed quietly if 1 humored her a little ; so I sat down in a chair by the fire, and asked her if she was ill. "111!" she replied; " I'm jolly happy, I am. I'm all there missis. I wen ; to the Load of.May this evening, and] met some pals, and the y had me t c

rights, and I topped oft' with a deepthinker. Do you know what a deeper is ?" I confessed, feeling quite sick at ■heart; that I did not. k ' O, you young innocence!" went on Our Nice Servant. " Hum and old ale, and a red-hot poker in it —that's a deep thinker. You poor young woman, you don't know nothing You're a dabby..!- Do you know who I am what I am ?"

" N-n-no, Ellen," I murmured. "I'm bad," she continued —"as bad as bad can be. They don'l make 'em was than me. I gammoned the workhouse coves. I was put in there as a stall, and to be kept out of trie way, that I shouldn't go up and give hevi- ! denre against Jem. My flesh really crept at these dreadful words He only got three months on the stopper," she went on ; " and now he's out, and says he'll do me a mischief. That's what upset me. That's why I broke out. That's why I've had a deep thinker." I thought very deeply myself that she must have had a good many deep thinkers that evening, for she was quite intoxicated. " Now, look you here," she said, suddenly turning her face towards mine, " you ain't lost nothin' since I've been here." " I certainly have not, Ellen," I replied, drawing away my face, however, in some terror. Right you are !" she returned, giving one knee a sounding clap ; " and you won't lose nothin' by me while I'm here, which won't be long. Don't be frightened, you chickabiddy. I won't do you no harm. 1 might a-done it over and over again if I liked. Over and over again has the kiddies been at me for to leave a window open, or a door unfastened, for to crack this crib." My blood ran cold; for, somehow, I had an idea that "cracking a crib" meant house-breaking. " But I wouldn't,"' Our Nice Servant pursued ;" I would'nt—no, not for the Bank of England. You stick by me, and I'll stick by ym. But it's time the gaff -as blown. Don't you go getting such.another bad bargain as me. Look here, you hinnocent!" As she spoke she rapidly untwisted her back hair, flung off her cap, bent down her head, and showed me, at the bark of her scalp,, a great deep white furrow. " A b'ack cook did that," she said, with a chopper. I'd aggerwated him in consequence of his wool. He was fr »m New Orleans, and the judge he gave him seven years' penal. Look here," she resumed, bearing her throat and showing a long, livid mark low down on her breast, " that was my Tom. He's broken three of my ribs, too. He's broken my jaw. I ain't got a sound tooth in my head. Look here," and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, and showed it me, all covered with scars. " That's foreign sailors with their knives. Look here "

How far she might have continued with the exhibition of her wounds I don't know ; but at this point she fell forward into the fender insensible. There was nothing the matter with her but too many Deep Thinkers. I put her to bed hs well as I could, and sat by her side all night trembling. She slept very soundly; and, about seven in the morning, and in a very quiet and respectful tone, begged me to go down stairs and get some rest myself. She added that I had been a very kind mistress to her, but that she knew that she had misbehaved herself and that she must go. This strange woman exercised so strong a fascination over me that I was debating in my mind whether it would not be as well to look over that scene in the kitchen, and allow her to resume tier duties as Our Nice Servant, when, about ten o'clock in the morning, she came to me. " There's a cab at the doo'," she said and my traps is in it. (Jive me my wages and let me step it. What's bred in the bone 'll come out in the flesh, and 1 was bred to willanv. If I was to stop I should have a Deep Thinker too many some night and rob and murder ! the whole bilin' of you. I ain't got

nothin to say agin you ; but a happy home's not my line, and I'm goin' for to Take my Hook." She took her Hook, that is to say, she wont away in the cab with her trunk, and from that day to this Inever saw any more of ner. But of ail the servants I have since had—nursemaids at sixteen, and cooks at two-and-twen-ty —L have never found one who. for industry,neatness, willingness, honesty, and fidelity, could compare with Our Nice Servant.