SCHOOL AND PASTIMES.
Guernsey abounded in the natural attractions that are dear to the youth
of robust body and adventurous nature. Isaac, though he excelled in
field sports and was the admiration of his school-fellows, was
sufficiently strong within himself to find profit in his own society. In
the thickets that overlooked Houmet Bay he found solace apart from his
companions. There he would recall the stories told him of the prowess of
his ancestor, William de Beauvoir, that man of great courage, a Jurat of
the royal court. Even here he did not always escape intruders. Outside
the harbour of St. Peter's Port, separated by an arm of the sea, rose
the Ortach Rock, between the Casquets and "Aurigny's Isle," a haunted
spot, once the abode of a sorcerer named Jochmus. To secure quiet he
would frequently visit this isolated place, in spite of the resident
devil, the devil-fish, or the devil-strip of treacherous water which ran
between.
He was not ten when, to the amazement of his friends in imitation of
Leander but without the same inducements, he swam the half mile to the
reefs of Castle Cornet and back again, through a boiling sea and
rip-tides that ran like mill-races. This performance he repeated again
and again. For milder amusement he would tramp to the water-lane that
stole through the Moulin Huet, a bower of red roses and perfume, or walk
by moonlight to the mystic cromlechs, where the early pagans and the
warlocks and witches of later days flitted round the ruined altars.
Though Isaac was self-contained and resolute he had a restless spirit.
Fearless, without a touch of the braggart, his courage was of the
valiant order, the quality that accompanies a lofty soul in a strong
body. For his constant courtesy and habit of making sacrifices for his
friends, he was in danger of being canonized by his school-fellows.
About this time, shortly after his father's death, it was suggested he
should leave the Queen Elizabeth School on the Island and study at
Southampton. Here he tried his best, boy though he was, to live up to
the standard of what he had been told were his obligations as a
gentleman, acquiring, too, a little book-learning and much every-day
knowledge.
Isaac's holidays, always spent in his beloved Guernsey, increased the
thirst for adventure. The spirit of conquest, the controlling influence
of his after life, grew upon him. Something accomplished, something
done, was the daily rule. To scale an impossible cliff with the wings of
circling sea-fowl beating in his face, to land a big conger eel without
receiving a shock, to rescue a partridge from a falcon, to shoot a
rabbit at fifty paces, to break a wild pony, or even to scan a
complicated line in his syntax--these were achievements, small perhaps,
but typical of his desire. His young soul was stirred; the blood coursed
in his veins as the sap courses in the trees of the forest in spring;
his mind, susceptible to the influences of nature, was strengthened and
purified by these pursuits.
In the shelter of silent trossach, on wind-swept height, or on wildest,
ever-restless sea, he would, as the mood seized him, take his solitary
outings. These jaunts, he told his mother, gave him time to reflect and
resolve. It was not strange that he selected a profession that presented
the opportunities he craved.
* * * * *
England with folded arms was at peace. The Treaty of Versailles had
terminated the disastrous war with America. The independence of the
"Thirteen States" had been recognized. The world was drawing a long
breath, filling its fighting lungs, awaiting the death struggle with
Napoleon for the supremacy of Europe. Yet the spirit of war lingered in
the air. It even drifted on the breeze across the Channel to Guernsey,
and filtered through the trees that crowned the Lion's Rock at Cobo. It
invaded the valleys of the Petit Bot and stirred the bulrushes in the
marshes of Havelet. The pulse of our hero throbbed with the subtle
infection. Not with the brute lust for other men's blood, but with the
instinct of the true patriot to shed, if need be, his own blood to
maintain the right. He would follow the example of his ancestors and
fight and die, if duty called him, in defence of king and country.
The sweet arrogance of youth uplifted him. Earth, air and water
conspired to encourage him. To satisfy this unspoken craving for action
he would, from his outlook on the Jerbourg crags--where bold Sir Hugh
had sat for just such purpose years before--watch the Weymouth luggers
making bad weather of it beyond the Casquets; or challenge in his own
boat the rip-tides between Sark and Brechou, and the combers that romped
between St. Sampson and the Isle of Herm.
There was no limit to this boy's hardihood and daring. The more furious
the gale the more congenial the task. Returning from these frequent
baptisms of salt water, his Saxon fairness and Norman freshness aglow
with spray, he would loiter on the beach to talk to the kelp gatherers
raking amid the breakers, and to watch the mackerel boats, reefed down,
flying to the harbour for shelter. The crayfish in the pools would tempt
him, he would try his hand at sand-eeling, or watch the surf men feed a
devil-fish to the crabs. Then up the gray benches of the furrowed
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.