One day it chanced, indeed, that the kettle, so to speak, boiled over. Martha Scweinvolt had been engaged upon her mistress’s back hair, and the latter, seated in “demi-toilette” upon a low stool, had been reading a novel. Suddenly she took it into her head to drop the book and take up a small hand looking-glass to see how her maid was getting on. In so doing she made a forward movement, which, as Martha happened at that instant to have the hair tight in hand, had the {056}natural effect of making the lady feel as if her maid had suddenly given her hair a violent and unpleasant pull. Without for a moment considering that it was entirely her own fault, the Baroness directly flew into a most furious passion. She stormed and raved against the woman until she was almost black in the face, and then, to finish matters off, struck her with either hand a violent box on the ears on each side of her head, and hustled her out of the room as if she was more than half inclined to kick her down-stairs then and there. [Illustration: 069] Once outside the door, Martha Scweinvolt became perfectly livid with rage. She turned round on the top of the stairs, faced the Baroness’s room, and shook her fist {057}vehemently towards it, vowing by her eleven-o’clock bread and cheese and beer (the most solemn oath known among domestic servants of the feminine gender) that she would have her revenge. Nor was Martha a person by any means likely to forget or neglect such a vow. Day and night she brooded over the matter, and ground her teeth savagely together as she remembered the indignity to which she had been subjected. And the more she brooded, the more determined did she become to seek vengeance from some quarter whence it could be surely and safely obtained. By herself she knew she could do but little; and as she was by no means popular among the other servants of the household, she could place but little reliance on any assistance from them. How to proceed, therefore, she had great doubts, but to proceed in some manner she was quite determined. Now unfortunately for me, Brother Thames, as you may perhaps be aware, a part of my stream has always been more or less under the influence of a class of river demons from which you in England are happily free. I believe a milder kind of demon exists in Scotland under the name of water kelpie, and possibly there may be something of the sort here and there even in your favoured English rivers, but you have nothing to match the demons of the Rhine. It is not a theme upon which I love to dwell. No respectable river desires to have anything to do with such creatures, and I frankly confess that at times they have brought my waters into great disrepute.