Well, she tried to put him off; but he insisted so much that at last she said: 

“James! there’s a dear, run down to the cellar and fetch me a drop of brandy.  You’ve made me feel so queer!” And when he had gone she out with her three feathers, and said, “By virtue of the three feathers from over my true love’s heart may James not be able to pour the brandy straight, except down his throat.”

Well! so it happened.  Try as he would, James could not get the brandy into the glass.  It splashed a few drops into it, then it trickled over his hand, and fell on the floor.  And so it went on and on till he grew so tired that he thought he needed a dram himself.  So he tossed off the few drops and began again; but he fared no better.  So he took another little drain, and went on, and on, and on, till he got quite fuddled.  And who should come down into the cellar but his master to know what the smell of brandy meant!

Now James the footman was truthful as well as honest, so he told the master how he had come down to get the sick laundry-maid a drop of brandy, but that his hand had shaken so that he could not pour it out, and it had fallen on the ground, and that the smell of it had got to his head.

“A likely tale,” said the master, and beat James soundly.

Then the master went to the mistress, his wife, and said:  “Send away that laundry-maid of yours.  Something has come over my men.  They have all drawn out their savings as if they were going to be married, yet they don’t leave, and I believe that girl is at the bottom of it.”

But his wife would not hear of the laundry-maid being blamed; she was the best servant in the house, and worth all the rest of them put together; it was his men who were at fault.  So they quarrelled over it; but in the end the master gave in, and after this there was peace, since the mistress bade the girl keep herself to herself, and none of the men would say ought of what had happened for fear of the laughter of the other servants.

So it went on until one day when the master was going a-driving, the coach was at the door, and the footman was standing to hold the coach open, and the butler on the steps all ready, when who should pass through the yard, so saucy and bright with a great basket of clean clothes, but the laundry-maid.  And the sight of her was too much for James, the footman, who began to blub.

“She is a wicked girl,” he said.  “She got all my savings, and got me a good thrashing besides.”

Then the coachman grew bold.  “Did she?” he said.  “That was nothing to what she served me.”  So he up and told all about the wet clothes and the awful job he had had the livelong night.  Now the butler on the steps swelled with rage until he nearly burst, and at last he out with his night of banging shutters.

“And one,” he said, “hit me on the nose.”