Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell).djvu/27



Thomson's devoted love was fully reciprocated by the object of it. Both of them were still very young; so young indeed, that it would scarcely have been a wonder if the rough soldiers amongst whom they lived, had been inclined to ridicule their attachment. But they were generally liked and respected and all who knew them felt a kindly interest in them, and wished them well. Their dream of love and happiness was brief indeed in duration, but it was perfect and unalloyed whilst it lasted.

Amongst those with whom he became acquainted in the army, the most notable was Charles Bradlaugh. Both entered the service about the same time. They were then youths of sixteen and seventeen years, Bradlaugh being the senior by about fourteen months. It was a strange chance that brought these two, so unlike in nearly every respect, together. Bradlaugh, the man of action and enterprise, ever striving for practical ends, yet loving a contest, whether physical or mental, as much for its own sake as for any advantage it might bring him: of firm and inflexible determination, who, when he has once