"Well, he is, and the biggest sneak as ever growed. What did he go and do last week? We had a lot o' passengers to get off by the down train to Dover, the people from the Grange it were, and a sight o' trunks. I'd been helping to stow the things in the luggage-van, and the footman, as he was getting into his second-class carriage, holds out a shilling, open handed. I'd got my fingers upon it, I had, when that there James Runn, that rascally porter, clutches hold of it and says it were meant for him, not for me. I wish he was gone, I do!" "The bull is gone, I hear," remarked Lady Level. "Oh, he have been gone this long time from here," replied the boy, shifting the bag from one shoulder to the other. "He took to run at folks reg'lar, he did; such fun it were to hear 'em squawk! One old woman in a red shawl he took and tossed. Mr. Drewitt up at the House interfered then, and told Farmer Piggot the bull must be moved; so the farmer put him over yonder on t'other side his farm into the two-acre meadow, which haven't got no right o' way through it. I wish he had tossed that there James Runn first and done for him!" deliberately avowed Sam, again shifting his burden. "You appear to find that bag heavy," remarked Lady Level. "It's not that heavy, so to say," acknowledged the surly boy; "it's that I be famishing for my tea. Oh, that there Runn's vicious, he is!--a sending me off when I'd hardly took a mouthful!" "Well, I could not carry it myself," she said laughingly. "_He_ might ha' brought it; he had swallowed down his own tea, he had. It's not so much he does--just rushes up to the doors o' the trains when they comes in, on the look out for what may be give to him, making believe he's letting folks in and out o' the carriages. I see my lord give him a shilling t'other day; that I did." "When my lord arrived here, do you mean?" "No, 'twarn't that day, 'twere another. My lord comes on to the station asking about a parcel he were expecting of. Mr. Noakes, he were gone to his dinner, and that there Runn answered my lord that he had just took the parcel to Marshdale House and left it with Mr. Snow. Upon which my lord puts his hand in his pocket and gives him a shilling. I see it." Lady Level laughed. It was impossible to help it. Sam's tone was so intensely wrathful. "Do you see much of Lord Level?" she asked. "I've not see'd him about for some days. It's said he's ill." "What is the matter with him?" "Don't know," said Sam. "It were Dr. Hill's young man, Mitcham, I heard say it. Mother sent me last night to Dr. Hill's for her physic, and Mr. Mitcham he said he had not been told naught about her physic, but he'd ask the doctor when he came back from attending upon my Lord Level." "Is your mother ill?" inquired Sam's listener.