“Thank you, sir! Good-bye!” cried Phil and Tony, saluting the old gentleman. Then, tucking their canes under their arms, they strode out of the building and away to the barracks, discussing as they went the possibility of war, and the share they were likely to take in it.
“I’m going to get a book on Russian!” exclaimed Phil, the day following their visit to the British Museum. “People tell me it is the most difficult of all languages to learn, but I may be able to pick up a few useful words. I remember now that the firm I acted as clerk to did business with another trading with Russian ports, and they had a Russian clerk. I met him once or twice, and I’ll just go along and see what he says about the matter.”
“It’s a good thing, right enough, Phil,” Tony replied, with a shrug, “but it’s far beyond me, as far as the clouds; but you have a try at it, old man, and I’ll be bound you’ll succeed. I never knew yer beat yet.”
Accordingly Phil went off at the first opportunity to see the clerk he had mentioned, and after a chat with him bought a book, and was shown the characters as a first lesson.
“Take my advice,” said the clerk, who was the son of a Russian mother and an English father, and almost entirely English in his ways and thoughts, “and buy a really good map of the country, and a reliable compass. Supposing you get cut off from the troops, it might prove of the greatest service to you. As regards the language, come along to my rooms as often as you like. I am always in about six o’clock, and will be glad to give you a lesson.”
Phil was not slow to take advantage of the offer. Every day he was free from guards and other duties, and had no engagement with Tony to see the sights of London, he repaired to the rooms of his Russian friend, and there worked hard at the language.
If Mr Western could have seen him and his earnestness, he would have been agape with amazement. This his idle adopted son? This the wilful lad who would never settle down to work, and never take a leading place in his class at school? Could this young soldier—this fine, stalwart young fellow (even he would have been obliged to admit it)—who slaved so many hours day and night at the dryest of dry and uninteresting subjects, be really the lad who had always gone contrary to his wishes, the unmanageable boy full of daring and mischief, who had occasioned the vicar of Riddington so many anxious and bitter thoughts? To him it would have been almost beyond belief. His dull and rigidly narrow mind could not have grasped the change. But Joe Sweetman, what would he have said? How he would have chuckled, with just a suspicion of pride and elation, and blurted out: “Didn’t I tell you so. Leave the lad alone. Wild and unmanageable? Pshaw! Look at him now. His heart’s in the right place. He’s got hold of a subject he’s interested in, and he’s got the backbone to stick to it, though it means a lot of hard work.”
And Phil had indeed the backbone and perseverance to continue to work at the language. A month passed, and he had apparently made no progress, and the alphabet was still almost a troublesome maze to him. But when some weeks more had flown by he could join a few words together in the semblance of sense, though he was still far from being able to carry on a conversation. By the middle of February, 1854, the year in which the eventful Crimean war began, he could even acknowledge to himself that he was getting on, and that a little more practice would find him fairly proficient. Never for a moment did he forget this ambition of his, this self-imposed task, to master the most difficult of languages. Who is there who cannot imagine the labour it meant, the constant grinding, the late hours when, beneath a flickering gas-jet or a smoking oil lantern, he opened his book and devoured its contents till his eyes were almost falling from his head? Few, indeed, would saddle themselves willingly with such a labour, but to Phil to take up a subject, however trivial, was to succeed, and that very success was the reward he received. The alphabet and more difficult words having now been mastered, the work was far more pleasant, and invited him to persevere.
“There’s no doubt about it, it is a grind, an awful grind,” he one day admitted in muttered tones to himself. “But I’ll stick to it. It comes easier to me every day, and who knows what the knowledge may do for me? Interpreters will certainly be required, though to imagine myself one is flying rather high.”
On parade, at musketry practice, everywhere he would repeat sentences in low tones, and would attempt to put the orders for the soldiers into Russian. Then, at the first opportunity, he and the clerk who had so befriended him would retire to the latter’s room and there carry on a long conversation, in which no English was admitted on pain of a small fine. Thus, as the days passed, his proficiency increased, till he was almost competent to find his way through the heart of Russia without much difficulty, so far as the language was concerned.