Charles was born in 1833,
after his father had reached middle age, and had settled down in the
piping times of peace. The elder Gordon had won his spurs in the
Napoleonic Wars.
We know very little of the boyhood of Charles Gordon, beyond the fact
that during the first ten years of his life he lived at the Pigeon
House Fort, in Dublin Bay, next in the Fort of Leith, and later on the
Island of Corfu. All these places are spots of great natural beauty--a
vista of stretching sea or mountain-top which the frowning fortress
only aided in romance and charm. Many a long ramble must the boy have
had, storing his memory with these quiet, sylvan pictures.
Not far from Leith was the famous battlefield of Prestonpans, where,
nearly a century before, his great-grandfather had been taken prisoner.
From his father or brothers he must have heard many a wild tale of the
Highlanders and their exploits.
As a child, however, this did not appeal to him. He loved nature in
her quiet moods best. He was timid and nervous, to such an extent that
the firing off of the cannon, when the colors were lowered at sundown,
would make him jump half out of his boots. It was only by the sternest
sort of self-control that he obtained the mastery of himself.
Not that Charles Gordon was ever a coward.
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