Every station in our town and its vicinity has a cordon of pickets, the Sunday farewell kisses of sweethearts are never witnessed by the platform porter, as the lovers in khaki are never allowed to see their loves off by train, and week-end adieux always take place at the station entrance. Some time ago the pickets allowed the men to see their sweethearts off, but as many youths abused the privilege and took train to London when they got on the platform, these kind actions have now become merely a pleasing memory. Pickets seem to crop up everywhere; on one bus ride to London, a journey of twenty miles, I have been asked to show my pass three times, and on a return journey by train I have had to produce the written permit on five occasions. But some units of our divisions soar above these petty inconveniences, as do two brothers who motor home every Sunday when church parade comes to an end. When these two leave church after divine service, a car waits them at the nearest street corner, and they slip into it, don trilby hats and civilian overcoats, and sweep outside the restricted area at a haste that causes the slow-witted country policeman to puzzle over the speed of the car and forget its number while groping for his pocket-book. It has always been a pleasure to me to follow for hours the winding country roads looking out for fresh scenes and new adventures. The life of the roadside dwellers, the folk who live in little stone houses and show two flower-pots and a birdcage in their windows, has a strange fascination for me. When I took up my abode here and got my first free Sunday afternoon, I shook military discipline aside for a moment and set out on one of my rambles. There comes a moment on a journey when something sweet, something irresistible and charming as wine raised to thirsty lips, wells up in the traveller's being. I have never striven to analyse this feeling or study the moment when it comes, and that feeling has been often mine. Now I know the moment it floods the soul of the traveller. It is at the end of the second mile, when the limbs warm to their work and the lungs fill with the fresh country air. At such a moment, when a man naturally forgets restraint to which he has only been accustomed for a short while, I met the picket for the first time. He told me to turn--and I went back. But it was not in my heart to like that picket, and I shall never like him while he stands there, sentry of the two-mile limit; an ogre denying me entrance into the wide world that lies beyond.