Our day was a great success, never to be forgotten by those poor
fellows, whose only recreation previously had been to stroll
listlessly up and down the gloomy, stone-flagged hall of the
great barracks until sheer weariness drove them out into the
turbid current of the "Highway," there to seek speedily some of
the dirty haunts where the "runner" and the prostitute: awaited
them.
But I have wandered far from the Bay of Islands while thus
chattering of the difficulties that beset the path of rational
enjoyment for the sailor ashore. Returning to that happy day, I
remember vividly how, just after we got clear of the town, we
were turning down a lane between hedgerows wonderfully like one
of our own country roads, when something--I could not tell what--
gripped my heart and sent a lump into my throat. Tears sprang
unbidden to my eyes, and I trembled from head to foot with
emotion. Whatever could it be? Bewildered for the moment, I
looked around, and saw a hedge laden with white hawthorn blossom,
the sweet English "may." Every Londoner knows how strongly that
beautiful scent appeals to him, even when wafted from draggled
branches borne slumwards by tramping urchins who have been far
afield despoiling the trees of their lovely blossoms, careless of
the damage they have been doing.
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