The Story of Isaac Brock | Page 5

cliffs, starred with silver lichens and stone-crop, to where ploughmen were leaving glistening furrows in the big parsnip fields. Then on through the tangle of sweet-briar, honeysuckle and wild roses, where birds nested in the perfumed foliage, until, the summit reached, surrounded by purple heather and golden gorse, he would look on the sea below, with Sark, like a "basking whale, burning in the sunset." Then he would hurry to tell his mother of the day's exploits, retiring to dream of strange lands and turbulent scenes, in which the roll of drums and roar of cannon seemed never absent.
With his youthful mind possessed with the exploits of the King's soldiers in Europe and America, and influenced by his brother John's example--then captain in the 8th Regiment of the line--Isaac pleaded successfully to enter the army. To better prepare for this all-important step, and to become proficient in French, a necessary accomplishment, it was arranged, though he was only fifteen, to place him with a Protestant clergyman in Rotterdam for one year, to complete his education.
His vacations now were few; his visits to the Island flying ones. But the old life still fascinated him. His physique developed as the weeks flew by, and he became more and more a striking personality. This was doubly true, for while he remained the champion swimmer, he was also the best boxer of his class, besides excelling in every other manly sport. In tugs-of-war and "uprooting the gorse" he had no equals, but a sense of his educational deficiencies kept him at his books.
He had only passed his sixteenth birthday when, one wild March morning in 1785, he was handed an important-looking document. It was a parchment with the King's seal attached, his commission of ensign in the 8th Regiment. Isaac at once joined the regimental depot in England. It was evident that his lack of learning would prove a barrier to promotion. He found that much of the leisure hitherto devoted to athletic sports must be given to study. Behind "sported oak," while dust accumulated on boxing-glove and foil--neither the banter of his brother officers nor his love for athletics inducing him to break the resolution--he bent to his work with a fixity of purpose that augured well for his future.
In every man's life there are milestones. Isaac Brock's life may fairly be divided into five periods. When he crossed the threshold of his Guernsey home and donned the uniform of the King he passed his first milestone.
CHAPTER III.
FROM ENSIGN TO COLONEL.
In every young man's career comes a time of probation. During this critical period that youth is wise who enters into a truce with his feelings. This is the period when influences for good or bad assert themselves--the parting of the ways. The sign-posts are painted in capitals.
When Brock buttoned his scarlet tunic and strapped his sword on his hip, as fine a specimen of a clean-bodied, clean-minded youth as ever trod the turnpike of life, he knew that he was at the cross-roads. The trail before him was well blazed, but straight or crooked, rough or smooth, valley or height, it mattered little so long as he kept nourished the bright light of purpose that burned steadily within him.
Five years of uneventful service, chiefly in England, passed by, and our hero was celebrating his coming of age. His only inheritance was health, hope and courage. While neither monk nor hermit, he had so far been as steadfast as the Pole Star in respect to his resolutions. He had allowed nothing to induce him to break the rules engraved on brass that he had himself imposed. His mind had broadened, his spirits ran high, his conscience told him that he was graduating in the world's university with honour. His love for athletics still continued. He had the thews of a gladiator, and in his Guernsey stockings stood six feet two inches. Add to this an honest countenance, with much gentleness of manner and great determination, and you have a faithful picture of Isaac Brock.
Upon obtaining his lieutenancy he returned to Guernsey, raised an independent company, and exchanged into the 49th, the Royal Berkshires, then stationed in Barbadoes. He now found himself looking at life under new conditions. While the beauties of Barbadoes enchanted him, his duties as a soldier were disappointing. They were limited to drill, dress parade, guard mounting, the erection of new fortifications, and patrolling the coast for vessels carrying prohibited cargoes.
Under the terms of a treaty made at Paris in 1773, United States produce for British West Indian ports could only be carried by British subjects in British ships. Britain's men-of-war were also authorized to seize any vessel laden with produce for or from any French colony. Brock was a soldier, not a policeman, and coast-guard duties palled upon him.