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