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.  His great diversion was in calculating the probabilities of invasion by the French.  In expectation of this, the refortifying of the island was in progress.  The memory of Admiral d’Estaing’s visit with his fleet from Toulon, and the capture of St. Vincent, sent a chill through the island.  The great victory by the British Admiral Rodney, when he whipped a superior French fleet to a standstill, was yet to come.  Bastions and earthworks grew during the night like mushrooms.  While Brock chafed under restraint, he knew how to improve the opportunity.