PEASANT. What does he want the land for? Why, of course, he sows and reaps and sells, and puts the money in the bank.
TRAVELLER. How can he plough a stretch like that, and get his harvest in?
PEASANT. You talk as if you were a child!... What's he got money for, if not to hire labourers?... It's they that do the ploughing and reaping.
TRAVELLER. These labourers are some of you peasants, I expect?
PEASANT. Some are from these parts, and some from elsewhere.
TRAVELLER. Anyway, they are peasants?
PEASANT. Of course they are!... the same as ourselves. Who but a peasant ever works? Of course they are peasants.
TRAVELLER. And if the peasants did not go and work for him...?
PEASANT. Go or stay, he wouldn't let us have it. If the land were to lie idle, he'd not part with it! Like the dog in the manger, that doesn't eat the hay himself and won't let others eat it!
TRAVELLER. But how can he keep his land? I suppose it stretches over some three or four miles? How can he watch it all?