Although the boy was born amid the smell of gunpowder, he must have been
a disappointment to his soldier father. He was puny and sickly, and for
a time it did not seem likely that he would live at all. So when he was
only a few months old, he was taken from the uncongenial air of India and
brought by his parents to England. Here he spent his boyhood, away from
the father and mother who were forced by official duties to return to the
East.
His home was a charming country house at Clifton near Bristol, where for
the first years he had private tutors. One interesting experience was in
a small school at Carrickmacross in Ireland; then, at eleven, he attended
public school at Hampton. But almost nothing is set down in detail as to
these early years, which would show that besides being a weakling, he was
in no sense remarkable. He was merely another of those small, backward
urchins that one may see at any recess, on any public school playground.
Still his father was set upon his receiving a military education. "It
will do no harm, anyway, and may straighten his shoulders a bit," he
doubtless said. And so at thirteen, young Roberts was entered at Eton,
that training ground of so many of England's soldiers. He made his first
mark in this famous school by winning a prize in mathematics.
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