"Oh, plant," she said.
"With the ubiquitous Scotchman?"
"It wouldn't carry anything else, except along the boundaries. There you might put in a row of horn-beam and oak. They always look rather nice against a background of firs.—Only the stumps of the burnt trees ought to be stubbed."
"Let them be stubbed," Richard said.
"Where are you going to find the labour? The estate is very much under-manned."
"Import it," Richard said.
"No, no," Honoria answered, again warming to her subject. "I don't believe in imported labour. If you have men by the week, they must lodge. And the lodger is as the ten plagues of Egypt in a village. If a man comes by the day, he is tired and slack. His heart is not in his work. He does as little as he can. Moreover, in either case, the wife and children suffer. He's certain to take them home short money. He's pretty safe, being tired in the one case, or, in the other, on the loose, to drink."
Dickie's face gave. He laughed a little.
"We seem to have come to a fine impasse!" he remarked. "Though humiliatingly small, that tract of burnt land must clearly be kept to knock one's head against."
Honoria rose to her feet.