Next day I was inclined to agree with her.  “There’s a woman and a little girl heading straight for the poppies,” said May, a maid about the bungalow.  I went out on the porch and waited their advent.  They plunged through the pine trees and into the fields, and as the roots of the first poppies were pulled I called to them.  They were about a hundred feet away.  The woman and the little girl turned to the sound of my voice and looked at me.  “Please do not pick the poppies,” I pleaded.  They pondered this for a minute; then the woman said something in an undertone to the little girl, and both backs jack-knifed as the slaughter recommenced.  I shouted, but they had become suddenly deaf.  I screamed, and so fiercely that the little girl wavered dubiously.  And while the woman went on picking I could hear her in low tones heartening the little girl.

I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny, the son of my sister.  It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake the dead, and I blew and blew, but the jack-knifed backs never unclasped.  I do not mind with men, but I have never particularly favoured physical encounters with women; yet this woman, who encouraged a little girl in iniquity, tempted me.

I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle.  Flourishing it in a sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the invaders.  The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the pines, but the woman calmly went on picking.  She took not the least notice.  I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was embarrassing.  There was I, charging down the field like a wild bull upon a woman who would not get out of the way.  I could only slow down, supremely conscious of how ridiculous it all was.  At a distance of ten feet she straightened up and deigned to look at me.  I came to a halt and blushed to the roots of my hair.  Perhaps I really did frighten her (I sometimes try to persuade myself that this is so), or perhaps she took pity on me; but, at any rate, she stalked out of my field with great composure, nay, majesty, her arms brimming with orange and gold.

Nevertheless, thenceforward I saved my lungs and flourished my rifle.  Also, I made fresh generalizations.  To commit robbery women take advantage of their sex.  Men have more respect for property than women.  Men are less insistent in crime than women.  And women are less afraid of guns than men.  Likewise, we conquer the earth in hazard and battle by the virtues of our mothers.  We are a race of land-robbers and sea-robbers, we Anglo-Saxons, and small wonder, when we suckle at the breasts of a breed of women such as maraud my poppy field.