"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?"