Life of Sir Roderick I Murchison Author:Archibald Geikie Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. FIRST YEARS OF A SOLDIER'S LIFE. The six years' schooling at Durham, such as it was, formed all the connected general education which Murchison... more » received, though he tried to supplement it after a fashion a couple of years later at Edinburgh. It was thought to be amply sufficient as a groundwork for the profession of a soldier; the more special training needed for the military life could be obtained elsewhere. Accordingly, in the year 1805, beiiig now thirteen years of age, he was taken to the Military College of Great Marlow. Late in life he could recall how his stepfather sang amusing songs to cheer him on the way; how, on arriving in London, they " were quartered at the Spring Gardens coffeehouse;" and how surprised he was to see, " in the box next to us, gloating over his beefsteak and onions, the corpulent John, Duke of Norfolk." . At Marlow his aptitude for study was not more marked than it had been at Durham. His six books of Homer and the Latin which had been flogged into him were no help in aiding him to solve even simple questions1s05.] FIRST YEARS OF A SOLDIER'S LIFE. 17 in geometry and arithmetic. He was rejected, or, in the language of his comrades, " spun," and sent back to " mug," or study. " I could not do," he says, " the commonest things in geometry, and was a bad arithmetician—a foible which has remained with me." When at length he had passed as a Cadet, he continued to introduce a fair amount of frolic among his not very arduous duties. C. 26—for that was his number in the third company—became as conspicuous a ringleader among the boisterous youths at Marlow as he had already been among the boys at Durham. He succeeded, however, at the same time, in acquiring some military habits, and a slender knowledge of tactics and drawing. He now, ...« less