OLD SERVANTS.
[Illustration]
When _Doomsday Book_ was drawn up, there was but one female domestic
servant in the county of Devon, that covers one million six hundred
and fifty-five thousand acres. When I mentioned that fact to a lady of
my acquaintance, she heaved a deep-drawn sigh, and said, "I wish I had
lived in the times of _Doomsday_, and had not been the mistress of
that one servant-maid."
[Illustration: The Old Butler.]
I believe that, were we lords of creation to have earlet holes
communicating with our lady's bowers, as in the middle ages the ladies
of creation had openings into their lords' halls, we would hear that
much of their conversation turned on the restlessness and misdemeanours
of their female servants. I do not mean for a moment to deny or
excuse these defects, but to explain the cause of the restlessness
complained of. Polly is out of a situation, she can neither boil a
potato properly nor cook a mutton-chop. She advertises in the local
paper for a situation as cook, from her parents' cottage, where the
whole family pig in one room. The post arrives next morning with forty
or fifty answers from ladies asking, pleading for her services. Half
an hour later up drives a squire's carriage with coach and footman on
the box, then the humble pony carriage of the rector, next the jingle
of a maiden lady who lives two miles off. All day long carriages of
every description are staying at the door, and ladies are visiting,
entreating for the services of Polly. Polly spreads the forty or fifty
letters she has received on the table.
1. "Is there a kitchen-maid kept?" "No." "Then I won't go to you."
2. "What wages?" "Twenty pounds." "I take nothing under twenty-eight,
and all found."
3. "Any men-servants?" "A butler." "Married or single?" "Married--wife
lives out." "I can go nowhere where there are not one or two unmarried
and agreeable footmen."
4. "You want a character, ma'am? Very sorry--if you doubts my
respectability we shan't agree."
5. "How many in family?" "Thirteen." "No good. I go nowhere but to a
single gentleman who waits on himself, and cooks his own dinner."
6. "Church or chapel, ma'am, did you ask? I keeps my religious opinions
to myself, and won't be dictated to. No female Jesuits for me."
7. "Early riser? No, ma'am, I am not an early riser, and don't intend
to demean myself by being such. I expecks a cup o' tea and a slice of
bread and butter brought me in bed by the kitchen-maid afore I gets up."
8. "Do I know how to cook _entrées_? There's nothink I can't do; I can
do better than a thousand perfessionals."
9. "Don't allow but alternate Sunday evenings out? I expecks to have
wot evenings out I likes."
10. "Object to waste, do you, ma'am. Very sorry, you must go elsewhere.
I wastes on principle. I wouldn't be so unladylike as to save what
belongs to others. Chuck away what I can't use is my scripture, praises
be."
Now is it to be wondered at that with such a crowd of applicants
Polly's head should be turned, and that she should think herself the
greatest person in the world, so that she will not stay in any place
where she has not everything her own way?
Anciently but few people kept servants, and the servants they kept were
to a large extent drawn from their own class, were often their own
relatives. Pepys took his own sister to be servant in his house. 1660,
Nov. 12. "My father and I discoursed seriously about my sister coming
to live with me, and yet I am much afraid of her ill-nature. I told her
plainly my mind was to have her come, not as a sister but as a servant,
which she promised me she could, and with many thanks did weep for
joy." 1660-1, Jan. 2. "Home to dinner, where I found Pal (my sister)
was come; but I do not let her sit down at the table with me, which I
do at first that she may not expect it hereafter from me."
Sister Paulina's temper proved unendurable. On November 12, 1662, Pepys
writes--"By my wife's appointment came two young ladies, sisters,
acquaintances of my wife's brothers, who are desirous to wait upon
some ladies, and who proffer their services to my wife. The youngest
hath a good voice, and sings very well, besides other good qualitys,
but I fear hath been bred up with too great libertys for my family,
and I fear greater inconveniences of expenses--though I confess the
gentlewoman being pretty handsome and singing, makes me have a good
mind to her." This girl, the younger Gosnell, was engaged. On the 22nd
he writes, "This day I bought the book of country dances against my
wife's woman Gosnell comes, who dances finely."
On November 29. "My wife and I in discourse do pleasantly call Gosnell
over Marmotte."
On January 4, 1662-3. "My wife did propound my having of my sister
Pal again to be her woman, since one we must have."--Gosnell had been
required to attend on her uncle, a justice.--"It being a great trouble
to me that I should have a sister of so ill a nature, that I must be
forced to spend money upon a stranger, when it might better be upon
her if she were good for anything."
Here are a couple of entries that came close together in the register
of Ottery St. Mary concerning marriages--
"1657, September 7. George Trobridge, Gentleman, servant unto John
Vaughan, Esq., married Elizabeth, daughter of Nicolas Hancock."
"1658, April 8. Jonathan Browne, of Bridport, Gent, and Margaret
Harris, servant to Richard Arundell, gent."
That Margaret Harris was a gentlewoman admits of little doubt. In the
register of Woolbrough I remember seeing that the Yarde family of
Bradley had a cousin or two of the same name in service in their house.
The usual term for a valet to a man of estate was--his gentleman, and
a lady's maid-servant was--her gentlewoman. The apostle commands, "By
love serve one another," and our forefathers do not seem at one time
to have thought that domestic service was derogatory to gentility; and
I do not myself see how that any one who considers that his supreme
Master and Lord humbled Himself, and took upon Him the form of a
servant, and stooped to wash His disciples feet, can sneer at _menial_
service. Nothing is menial but what is done in a base, cantankerous,
unloving spirit. It is usually found that such domestics as come
out of the lowest slums are they who are most particular not to do
anything that is not precisely their work, who are most choice and most
exacting. When the relatives of the family ceased to be servants in
the house, then came in the daughters of farmers, the cleanest, most
thrifty, obliging, sensible, and altogether admirable domestics that
ever were. Who that is over fifty does not remember them? They were
conscientious, they took an interest in the family, their mistresses
liked--even loved them.
Then the farmers became too grand in their ideas to send out their
girls into service, and consequently one class alone was drained of its
young women, the labourer class, the uneducated, undisciplined, the
class that had no idea of thrift; and is it to be wondered at that the
girls' heads should be turned when they find in what demand they were?
I do not mean to say that, taken as a whole, a more respectable, nice,
honest, cleanly set of girls is anywhere to be found than our English
serving lasses; but we live in an age of transition--they who were
formerly only required as drudges in farm-houses, suddenly discover
themselves in huge request, and that has upset them.
The trouble there is in households now about domestic servants is
said by some to be due to the mistresses--they do not make friends of
their slavies, as did the ancient mistresses of theirs. But how can
they, when the girl does not stay in the house over three months or
half a year, and when she belongs to a class intellectually, socially,
educationally removed from her mistress by a great cultural gulf as
wide as that which separated Lazarus from Dives?
There are few more charming figures in fiction and in retrospect than
the "old blue-coated serving-man," devoted to his master's interests,
and living and dying in his service; but I doubt whether he deserved
the halo with which he has been invested. He was a bit of an imposture.
Devoted he was to his master's interests, because he lived on his
master, and just on the same principle as any parasite desires the
welfare, the fatness, and full-bloodedness of the mammal on which it is
itself battening. A French cynic in his will bequeathed to his valet
"all that of which he has robbed me." There have been old and faithful
servants, but that there were many of them unselfseeking I do not
believe; and I remember a very considerable number of them who became
intolerable nuisances--exacting, despotic, believing that the family on
which they depended could not get on without them, as the fly said of
itself when it sat on the coach, "How I am getting the carriage along!"
I also know that a good many have carried on gross depredations on
their masters for many years unsuspected and undetected, all the while
believed to have but one object of love and care in the world--the
master and his house.
If we were to make a graduated scale of servants, according to
their merits and demerits, I should put the butler at one end and
the coachman at the other; in the former the imposition reaches
its maximum, and the minimum is in the coachman, or, to put it the
other way, I think that the dear old coachman is the most genuine,
true-hearted, and deepest imbued with love of his master and the
family, and that there is the least of this unselfish love in the
butler. Very ungrateful and unjust would I be were I not to acknowledge
the excellence in the old coachman, for have I not one of my own, now
indeed for his age dethroned from his box but not from my service, who
carried me in his arms to the hayfield when I was a little fellow,
hardly able to toddle, and who now loves above everything to take my
youngest into the stables, and perch the little fellow on the back of
one of the carriage horses. A worthy old servant, who had been with my
grandfather, then my father, then with me, and--who knows? for he is
green still--may serve my son.
The old notion was, that a servant was engaged for a year, and that
a servant could not leave, nor a master discharge a servant, under a
quarter's notice. The servants within a house were recognized by law
as _menials_, from the Latin _intra menia_, within walls. As late as
last century, all single men between twelve years old and sixty, and
married ones under thirty years of age, and all single women between
twelve and forty, not having any visible livelihood, were compellable
by two justices to go into service of some sort. The _apprentice_,
from the French _apprendre_, to learn, was usually bound for a term
of years, by indenture, to serve the master, and be maintained and
instructed by him. Landowners and farmers had their apprentices as
well as their menials. Orphan children were apprenticed by the parish,
and an almost filial relation and affection grew up between master
and mistress and their apprentices. This was specially noticeable
among farm-servants. I knew an old man who had been apprenticed to my
great-great-grandmother, that died at the end of last century, and he
always spoke of her with the tenderest respect, and was proud to the
last hour of his life that he had been apprenticed to the old madame.
The farm-servants and the inferior servants to the gentry were hired at
certain fairs, generally at Martinmas; in the west of England these are
called _giglet_ fairs, but they exist in Yorkshire, and indeed in many
other parts of England. The word giglet means a girl. The girls and
young men were wont to stand in rows in the market-place, to be looked
at and selected. They wore ribands according to the sort of service
they desired to enter upon. A carter carried in his hat a tuft of white
ribands, a cook wore a red riband, and a housemaid a bunch of blue. The
giglet fairs continue, and are attended by all the labouring population
of the country side, especially by the young of both sexes, but there
is very little hiring now done at them.
One of the most perplexing facts to the student of genealogy, in making
out the pedigree of an important family from registers of births,
deaths, and marriages in a parish, is that wherever a great family
was seated, there are found also a shoal of individuals, distinctly
of an inferior social class, bearing the same patronymic. That these
were no blood relatives is almost certain, for they are not mentioned
in the wills of those belonging to the aristocratic family; and we
find no evidence in registers or elsewhere of any family relation. It
has often been conjectured, that these individuals and families did
really derive from the main aristocratic stem, perhaps not legitimately
but left-handedly. But the evidence for this is wanting--it may be
forthcoming here and there in individual cases, but there is no proof
that this was generally so. To this day we find among the labourers
names of historical and great landed families, and we are disposed to
think that these are actual lineal offshoots from such families, and
sometimes fancy we trace a certain dignity of bearing and aristocratic
cast in their features. But I believe that these humble Courtenays,
Cliffords, Veres, Devereux, &c., have not a drop of the blood in
their veins belonging to these great families, that, in fact, they
are descendants of menial servants, who were once in the castle or
manor-house of these barons and knights and squires, and that they ate
their beef and drank their ale, but drew no blood from their veins. In
the fifteenth century surnames were by no means general, and even in
the sixteenth were not of general adoption. To this day in the western
hills of Yorkshire, separating that county from Lancashire, persons are
known by their pedigrees, and very often their surnames are generally
unknown. Tom is not Tom Greenwood, but Tom o' Jakes, that is, Tom the
son of Jack; and if there be two Toms in a parish both sons of Jack,
then one is distinguished from the other by carrying the pedigree
further back a stage. One is Tom o' Jakes o' Will's, and the other is
Tom o' Jakes o' Harry's. In early parish registers such an entry as
this may occur--
"1596, 3 July. Buried, William, servant to Arthur Carew, Esq.,
commonly called William Carew."
Later than that--in 1660-1--Pepys enters on Feb. 14, "My boy Wareman
(his servant lad) hath all this day been called young Pepys, as Sir W.
Pen's boy (servant) is young Pen."
At the end of last century and the beginning of this it was a common
custom for servant men to assume the titles of their masters, and
to address each other under their master's names. This was not an
affectation, it was a survival of the old custom of every servant
taking his master's surname, as he wore his livery.
In _High Life Below Stairs_ we have this scene--
"The Park.
_Duke's servant._ What wretches are ordinary servants, that go
on in the same vulgar track every day! eating, working, and
sleeping!--But we, who have the honour to serve the nobility,
are of another species. We are above the common forms, have
servants to wait upon us, and are as lazy and luxurious as our
masters. Ha!--my dear Sir Harry--
(_Enter_ Sir Harry's Servant.)
How have you done these thousand years?
_Sir H.'s serv._ My Lord Duke!--your grace's most obedient
servant!
_Duke's serv._ Well, Baronet, and where have you been?
_Sir H.'s serv._ At Newmarket, my Lord.--We have had dev'lish
fine sport.
_After a while they retire, then enter_ Lady Bab's Maid _and_
Lady Charlotte's Maid.
_Lady B.'s maid._ O fie, Lady Charlotte! you are quite
indelicate. I am sorry for your taste.
_Lady C.'s maid._ Well, I say it again, I love Vauxhall."
The _Spectator_ (June 11th, 1711) says, "Falling in the other Day at a
Victualling-House near the House of Peers, I heard the Maid come down
and tell the Landlady at the Bar, That my Lord Bishop swore he would
throw her out at Window, if she did not bring up more Mild Beer, and
that my Lord Duke would have a double Mug of Purle. My Surprize was
encreased, in hearing loud and rustick Voices speak and answer to each
other upon the publick Affairs, by the Names of the most Illustrious
of our Nobility; till of a sudden one came running in, and cry'd the
House was rising. Down came all the Company together, and away! The
Alehouse was immediately filled with Clamour, and scoring one Mug to
the Marquis of such a Place, Oyl and Vinegar to such an Earl, three
Quarts to my new Lord for wetting his Title, and so forth.... It is a
common Humour among the Retinue of People of Quality, when they are in
their Revels, ... to assume in a humorous Way the Names and Titles of
those whose Liveries they wear."
What was done in a "humorous Way" in the days of Addison, was a relic
of what was actually done in sober seriousness a couple of centuries
earlier, when surnames were possessed by the few only, and these men of
consequence.
Does the reader remember the charming account of the servants in the
household of Sir Roger de Coverly? "There is one Particular which I
have seldom seen but at Sir Roger's; it is usual in all other Places,
that Servants fly from the Parts of the House through which their
Master is passing; on the contrary, here they industriously place
themselves in his way; and it is on both Sides, as it were, understood
as a Visit, when the Servants appear without calling.... Thus Respect
and Love go together; and a certain Chearfulness in Performance of
their Duty is the particular Distinction of the lower Part of his
Family. When a Servant is called before his Master, he does not come
with an Expectation to hear himself rated for some trivial Fault,
threatned to be stripped, or used with any other unbecoming Language,
which mean Masters often give to worthy Servants; but it is often to
know, what Road he took that he came so readily back according to
Order; whether he passed by such a Ground; if the old Man who rents it
is in good health: or whether he gave Sir Roger's Love to him, or the
like.
"A Man who preserves a Respect, founded on his Benevolence to his
Dependants, lives rather like a Prince than a Master in his Family;
his Orders are received as Favours, rather than Duties; and the
Distinction of approaching him is Part of the Reward for executing what
is commanded by him."
It is singular to see how small the wages paid were formerly for
domestics, and what a leap up they have made of late, synchronous with
deterioration of quality and character. For a farmer's daughter £7 was
a high wage, and now £17 is sniffed at by a ploughman's wench. Pepys
took a cook from the house of his Grace the Duke of Albemarle, and paid
her £4 per annum, and complains at the wage. He says he never before
did spend so big a sum on a wage. She must have been an energetic and
active woman, for here is the _menu_ of a dinner she cooked. "We had a
fricasee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps
in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a
dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie, a most rare pie, a
dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts--most neatly dressed by
our own only mayde." How did she manage it without a kitchen range with
hot plates?
The account-book of Mrs. Joyce Jefferies, a lady resident in
Herefordshire and Worcestershire during the Civil War, comprises the
receipt and expenditure of nine years. She lived a single person in her
house in Hereford, and by no means on a contracted scale. Many female
servants are mentioned, two having wages from £3 to £3 4_s._ per annum,
with gowns of dark stuff at midsummer. Her coachman, receiving 40_s._
per annum, had at Whitsuntide, 1639, a new cloth suit and cloak; and
when he was dressed in his best, wore fine blue silk ribbon at the
knees of his hose. The liveries of this and another man-servant were,
in 1641, of green Spanish cloth, and cost upwards of nine pounds.
Her steward received a salary of £5 16_s._, and she kept for him a
horse, which he rode to collect her rents and dues, and to see to the
management of her estate.
I have myself a book of accounts, a little later, where the "mayde of
my wyfe" gets £3, and the footman £4 and his livery.
In some houses a whole series of account-books has been preserved,
showing, among other things, the rise in wages paid for servants, and
very instructive they are.
Here is from an account-book of 1777, in a country squire's house.
Wages were paid on Lady Day for the whole year, and not quarterly.
1777. £ _s._ _d._
Sarah's wages 4 19 0
Old Becky's 3 0 0
Anne, half-year 1 0 0
Nanny 5 5 0
Cook 7 7 0
Gardener 2 7 0
Bray the waggoner 9 0 0
A certain Betty had for
wages and bill 6 0 0
In an account-book for 1811 the wages are a little higher--
£ _s._ _d._
Footman 10 0 0
Coachman 14 0 0
Cook 8 8 0
Housemaid 6 6 0
Scullery-maid 2 5 0
The Boy 3 0 0
There died only a year ago an old woman who had been a servant since
she was eighteen in two of the greatest houses in the neighbourhood.
When she first went into service, she told me, it was at K--. She
received £4 as her wage, and managed to save money on that. She was,
however, given a washing-dress by her mistress at Lady Day. After some
years she went to L-- Park, where she received £6. This was after a
while raised to £7, and she invariably put away some of her wage. When
after tried service her wage was raised to £10, the climax of her
ambition was reached, she regarded herself as passing rich, and never
hoped to obtain more.
"For certain, sir," she said, "my work wasn't worth more."
In my own parish churchyard, one of the best of the monuments is
that raised by my grandfather to the memory of an old servant of his
grandmother's.
MR. THOMAS HILSDEN,
WHO DIED FEB. 21, 1806,
AGED 70,
HAVING LIVED IN THE FAMILY OF
Mrs. Margaret Gould, of Lew House,
44 YEARS.
THIS STONE WAS ERECTED
IN CONSIDERATION OF HIS FAITHFUL SERVICE.
There is an ancient family I know of historic dignity. It has lost its
ancestral estates, lost almost all of its family portraits; but one
great picture remains to it, so poorly painted, that at the sale of the
Manor-house and its contents no one would buy it,--it is the portrait
of an old servant, a giant, a tall and powerful ranger, who, partly for
his size, chiefly for his fidelity, was painted and hung up in the hall
along with the knights and squires and ladies of the family which he
had served so well.
The mention of this picture leads me to say a few words about a worthy
man who died some twenty years ago. Rawle was hind to the late Sir
Thomas Acland of Killerton. Sir Thomas introduced Arab blood among the
Exmoor ponies, and greatly improved the breed. About 1810 he appointed
Rawle in charge of these ponies. He was a fine man, fully six feet
high, and big in proportion. His power of breaking in the ponies was
extraordinary. He was quite indifferent to falls, often pony and man
rolling over and over each other. The sale of the ponies generally took
place at Bampton and at Taunton fairs. The system was this--a herd of
the wild little creatures was driven into the fair. Buyers attended
from all parts of the country, and when a dealer took a fancy to a
pony, he pointed him out to the moor-man in attendance, who went into
the herd, seized upon the selected one, and brought him out by sheer
strength. This is no easy matter, for the Exmoor pony fights with his
fore-feet in desperate fashion. It usually took, and takes, two men to
do this, but Rawle did not require assistance, such was his strength.
Indeed so strong was Rawle, that he would put a hand under the feet of
a maid-servant on each side of him, and raise himself and at the same
time both of them, till he was upright, and he held each woman on the
palm of his hand, one on each side of him, level with his waist. Sir
Thomas Acland was wont, when he had friends with him, to get the man to
make this exhibition of his strength before them.
Sir Thomas had a hunting box at Higher Combe (called in the district
Yarcombe); he occupied one portion of the house when there, a
farmer occupied the rest. It was a curious scene--a remnant of
feudal times--when Sir Thomas came there. His tenants, summoned for
the purpose, had accompanied him in a cavalcade from Winsford, or
Hornicott. John Rawle could never be persuaded to eat a bite or take a
draught when his master was in a house; he planted himself as a sentry
upright before the door when Sir Thomas went in to refresh himself
anywhere, and nothing could withdraw him from his post.
In connexion with these expeditions to Higher Combe, it may be added
that the cavalcade of tenants would attend Sir Thomas to the wood where
a stag had been harboured. Among them was a band, each member of the
band played _one_ note only; but it was so arranged that a hunting tune
was formed by these notes being played in succession. When the stag was
unharboured, and started across the moor, the band commenced this tune,
and until it was played out the hounds were kept in leash. The time
occupied by this tune was the "law" given to the stag, and when it was
ended the hounds were laid on.
A famous china bowl was made in China, and presented to Sir Thomas by
the Hunt. This bowl used to be kept at Higher Combe; it represented a
stag-hunt. And twelve glasses were presented to Sir Thomas along with
it, each engraved with a stag, and the words, "Success to the hunting."
One day Sir Thomas said to Rawle, "Rawle, I want to send a gelding and
a mare in foal to Duke Ludwig of Baden, at Baden Baden. Can you take
them?"
"Certainly, Sir Thomas."
The man could neither read nor write, and of course knew no other
language than the broadest Exmoor dialect--and this was at the
beginning of the century, when there were not the facilities for
travelling that there are now. He started for Baden Baden, and took his
charges there in safety, and delivered them over to the Grand Duke. He
had, however, an added difficulty, in that the mare foaled _en route_,
and he had a pass for two ponies only.
Is the old "good and faithful servant" a thing of the past? Not perhaps
the good servant, but the servant who continues in a family through the
greatest portion of his or her life, who becomes a part of the family,
is probably gone for ever; the change in the signification of words
tells us of social changes. A man's family, even in Addison's time,
comprised his servants. "Of what does your family consist?" A hundred
and fifty years ago this would have been answered by an enumeration of
those comprising the household, from the children to the scullion. Now
who would even think of a servant when such a question is asked? The
family is shrunk to the blood-relatives, and the servants are outside
the family circle.
We are in a condition of transformation in our relations to our
servants; we no longer dream of making them our friends, and
consequently they no longer regard us with devotion. But I am not sure
that the fault lies with the master. The spirit of unrest is in the
land; the uneducated and the partially educated crave for excitement,
and find it in change; they can no longer content themselves with
remaining in one situation, and when the servants shift quarters every
year or two, how can master and mistress feel affection for them, or
take interest in them?
Does the reader know Swift's _Rules and Directions for Servants_? They
occupy one hundred and eighteen pages of volume twelve of his works,
in the edition of 1768, and comprise instructions to butler, cook,
footman, coachman, groom, steward, chambermaid, housemaid, nurse, etc.
They show us that human nature among servants was much the same in the
middle of last century as in this. Only a scanty extract must be given.
"When your master or lady calls a servant by name, if that servant be
not in the way, none of you are to answer, for then there will be no
end of your drudgery.
"When you have done a fault be always pert and insolent, and behave
yourself as if you were the injured person.
"The cook, the butler, the groom, and every other servant should act
as if his master's whole estate ought to be applied to that particular
servant's business.
"Take all tradesmen's parts against your master. You are to consider if
your master hath paid too much, he can better afford the loss than a
poor tradesman.
"Never submit to stir a finger in any business but that for which you
were particularly hired. For example, if the groom be drunk or absent,
and the butler be ordered to shut the stable-door, the answer is ready,
'An' please, your honour, I don't understand horses.'
"If you find yourself to grow into favour with your master or lady,
take some opportunity to give them warning, and when they ask the
reason, and seem loath to part with you, answer that a poor servant is
not to be blamed if he strives to better himself. Upon which, if your
master hath any generosity, he will add five or ten shillings a quarter
rather than let you go.
"Write your own name and your sweetheart's with the smoke of a candle
on the roof of the kitchen, to show your learning. If you are a young
sightly fellow, whenever you whisper your mistress at the table, run
your nose full into her cheek, or breathe full in her face.
"Never come till you have been called three or four times, for none but
dogs will come at the first whistle.
"When you have broken all your earthen vessels below stairs--which is
usually done in a week--the copper-pot will do as well; it can boil
milk, heat porridge, hold small beer--apply it indifferently to all
these uses, but never wash or scour it.
"Although you are allowed knives for the servants' hall at meals, yet
you ought to spare them, and make use of your master's.
"Let it be a constant rule, that no chair or table in the servants'
hall have above three legs.
"Quarrel with each other as much as you please, only always bear in
mind that you have a common enemy, which is your master and lady.
"When your master and lady go abroad together to dine, you need leave
only one servant in the house to answer the door and attend the
children. Who is to stay at home is to be determined by short and
long cuts, and the stayer at home may be comforted by a visit from a
sweetheart.
"When your master or lady comes home, and wants a servant who happens
to be abroad, your answer must be, that he had but just that minute
stepped out, being sent for by a cousin who was dying. When you are
chidden for a fault, as you go out of the room mutter loud enough to be
plainly heard.
"When your lady sends for you to her chamber to give you orders, be
sure to stand at the door and keep it open, fiddling with the lock all
the while she is talking to you.
"When you want proper instruments for any work you are about, use all
expedients you can invent. For instance, if the poker be out of the
way, stir the fire with the tongs; if the tongs be not at hand, use the
muzzle of the bellows, the wrong end of the shovel, or the handle of
the fire-brush. If you want paper to singe a fowl, tear the first book
you see about the house. Wipe your shoes, for want of a clout, on the
bottom of a curtain or a damask napkin.
"There are several ways of putting out a candle, and you ought to
be instructed in them all: you may run the candle-end against the
wainscot, which puts the snuff out immediately; you may lay it on the
ground and tread the snuff out with your foot; you may hold it upside
down until it is choked in its own grease, or cram it into the socket
of the candlestick; you may whirl it round in your hand till it goes
out.
"Clean your plate, wipe your knives, and rub the dirty tables with the
napkins and tablecloths used that day, for it is but one washing.
"When a butler cleans the plate, leave the whiting plainly to be seen
in all the chinks, for fear your lady should not believe you had
cleaned it.
"You need not wipe your knife to cut bread for the table, because in
cutting a slice or two it will wipe itself.
"A butler must always put his finger into every bottle to feel whether
it be full.
"Whet the backs of your knives until they are as sharp as the edge,
that when gentlemen find them blunt on one side they may try the other.
"Cooks should scrape the bottom of pots and kettles with a silver
spoon, for fear of giving them a taste of copper.
"Get three or four charwomen to attend you constantly in the kitchen,
whom you pay with the broken meat, a few coals, and all the cinders.
"Never make use of a spoon in anything that you can do with your hands,
for fear of wearing out your master's plate.
"In roasting and boiling use none but the large coals, and save the
small ones for the fires above stairs." And so on.
If the old servants had their merits, they had also their demerits.
Have they not bequeathed the latter to their successors, and carried
away their merits with them into a better world?
[Illustration]