With Kitchener in the Soudan: A Story of Atbara and Omdurman. Henty George Alfred
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with them, and at nightfall slipped on his disguise and made his escape. It was at least possible–she would not give up all hope.
So years went on. Things were quiet in Egypt. A native army had been raised there, under the command of British officers, and these had checked the northern progress of the Mahdists and restored confidence in Egypt. Gregory–for the boy had been named after his father–grew up strong and hearty. His mother devoted her evenings to his education. From the Negress, who was his nurse and the general servant of the house, he had learnt to talk her native language. She had been carried off, when ten years old, by a slave-raiding party, and sold to an Egyptian trader at Khartoum; been given by him to an Atbara chief, with whom he had dealings; and, five years later, had been captured in a tribal war by the Jaalin. Two or three times she had changed masters, and finally had been purchased by an Egyptian officer, and brought down by him to Cairo. At his death, four years afterwards, she had been given her freedom, being now past fifty, and had taken service with Gregory Hilliard and his wife. Her vocabulary was a large one, and she was acquainted with most of the dialects of the Soudan tribes.
From the time when her husband was first missing, Mrs. Hilliard cherished the idea that, some day, the child might grow up and search for his father; and, perhaps, ascertain his fate beyond all doubt. She was a very conscientious woman, and was resolved that, at whatever pain to herself, she would, when once certain of her husband's death, go to England and obtain recognition of his boy by his family. But it was pleasant to think that the day was far distant when she could give up hope. She saw, too, that if the Soudan was ever reconquered, the knowledge of the tribal languages must be of immense benefit to her son; and she therefore insisted, from the first, that the woman should always talk to him in one or other of the languages that she knew.
Thus Gregory, almost unconsciously, acquired several of the dialects used in the Soudan. Arabic formed the basis of them all, except the Negro tongue. At first he mixed them up, but as he grew, Mrs. Hilliard insisted that his nurse should speak one for a month, and then use another; so that, by the time he was twelve years old, the boy could speak in the Negro tongue, and half a dozen dialects, with equal facility.
His mother had, years before, engaged a teacher of Arabic for him. This he learned readily, as it was the root of the Egyptian and the other languages he had picked up. Of a morning, he sat in the school and learned pure Arabic and Turkish, while the boys learned English; and therefore, without an effort, when he was twelve years old he talked these languages as well as English; and had, moreover, a smattering of Italian and French, picked up from boys of his own age, for his mother had now many acquaintances among the European community.
While she was occupied in the afternoon, with her pupils, the boy had liberty to go about as he pleased; and indeed she encouraged him to take long walks, to swim, and to join in all games and exercises.
"English boys at home," she said, "have many games, and it is owing to these that they grow up so strong and active. They have more opportunities than you, but you must make the most of those that you have. We may go back to England some day, and I should not at all like you to be less strong than others."
As, however, such opportunities were very small, she had an apparatus of poles, horizontal bars, and ropes set up, such as those she had seen, in England, in use by the boys of one of the families where she had taught, before her marriage; and insisted upon Gregory's exercising himself upon it for an hour every morning, soon after sunrise. As she had heard her husband once say that fencing was a splendid exercise, not only for developing the figure, but for giving a good carriage as well as activity and alertness, she arranged with a Frenchman who had served in the army, and had gained a prize as a swordsman in the regiment, to give the boy lessons two mornings in the week.
Thus, at fifteen, Gregory was well grown and athletic, and had much of the bearing and appearance of an English public-school boy. His mother had been very particular in seeing that his manners were those of an Englishman.
"I hope the time will come when you will associate with English gentlemen, and I should wish you, in all respects, to be like them. You belong to a good family; and should you, by any chance, some day go home, you must do credit to your dear father."
The boy had, for some years, been acquainted with the family story, except that he did not know the name he bore was his father's Christian name, and not that of his family.
"My grandfather must have been a very bad man, Mother, to have quarreled with my father for marrying you."
"Well, my boy, you hardly understand the extent of the exclusiveness of some Englishmen. Of course, it is not always so, but to some people, the idea of their sons or daughters marrying into a family of less rank than themselves appears to be an almost terrible thing. As I have told you, although the daughter of a clergyman, I was, when I became an orphan, obliged to go out as a governess."
"But there was no harm in that, Mother?"
"No harm, dear; but a certain loss of position. Had my father been alive, and had I been living with him in a country rectory, your grandfather might not have been pleased at your father's falling in love with me, because he would probably have considered that, being, as you know by his photograph, a fine, tall, handsome man, and having the best education money could give him, he might have married very much better; that is to say, the heiress of a property, or into a family of influence, through which he might have been pushed on; but he would not have thought of opposing the marriage on the ground of my family. But a governess is a different thing. She is, in many cases, a lady in every respect, but her position is a doubtful one.
"In some families she is treated as one of themselves. In others, her position is very little different from that of an upper servant. Your grandfather was a passionate man, and a very proud man. Your father's elder brother was well provided for, but there were two sisters, and these and your father he hoped would make good marriages. He lived in very good style, but your uncle was extravagant, and your grandfather was over indulgent, and crippled himself a good deal in paying the debts that he incurred. It was natural, therefore, that he should have objected to your father's engagement to what he called a penniless governess. It was only what was to be expected. If he had stated his objections to the marriage calmly, there need have been no quarrel. Your father would assuredly have married me, in any case; and your grandfather might have refused to assist him, if he did so, but there need have been no breakup in the family, such as took place.
"However, as it was, your father resented his tone, and what had been merely a difference of opinion became a serious quarrel, and they never saw each other, afterwards. It was a great grief to me, and it was owing to that, and his being unable to earn his living in England, that your father brought me out here. I believe he would have done well at home, though it would have been a hard struggle. At that time I was very delicate, and was ordered by the doctors to go to a warm climate, and therefore your father accepted a position of a kind which, at least, enabled us to live, and obtained for me the benefit of a warm climate.
"Then the chance came of his going up to the Soudan, and there was a certainty that, if the expedition succeeded, as everyone believed it would, he would have obtained permanent rank in the Egyptian army, and so recovered the position in life that he had voluntarily given up, for my sake."
"And what was the illness you had, Mother?"
"It was an affection of the lungs, dear. It was a constant cough, that threatened to turn to consumption, which is one of the most fatal diseases we have in England."
"But it hasn't cured you, Mother, for I often hear you coughing, at night."
"Yes, my cough has been a little troublesome of late, Gregory."
Indeed, from the time of the disaster to the expedition of Hicks Pasha, Annie Hilliard had lost ground. She herself was conscious of it; but, except for the sake of the boy, she had not troubled over it. She had not altogether given up hope, but the hope grew fainter and fainter, as the years went on. Had it not been for the promise to her husband, not to mention his real name or to make any application to his father unless absolutely assured of his death, she would, for Gregory's sake, have written to Mr. Hartley, and asked for help that would have enabled her to take the boy home to England, and have him properly educated there. But she had an implicit faith in the binding of a promise so made, and as long as she