There were other Brocks in nearer relationship who had won their spurs both in battle by land and sea and in journeyings afar. As has been said, Isaac’s father, John Brock, was a midshipman and had travelled to India, in those days a great distance away. Another relative was the famous Lord de Saumarez, also a Guernsey man, who had distinguished himself at St. Vincent and at the Nile. Brock’s mother was Elizabeth de Lisle, daughter of the lieutenant-bailiff of Guernsey, a position which corresponded to that now held by our lieutenant-governors, an office the duties of which, as we shall see, Isaac Brock himself, in later years, discharged in Upper Canada. It was not, however, in family tradition and example alone that young Brock found inspiration for heroic and valorous deeds. He could not but be imbued with love of adventure. This island home of crag and headland was the vault of many a memory of heroic deeds, the past scene of many a stirring exploit of the hardy seafaring folk who had been its dwellers as long as ever dwellers had been there. Young Brock learned numberless stories “Of moving accidents by flood and field, Of hair-breadth scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach.” Long, long years before, the Druids had their caves and catacombs tucked away in quaint hiding-places, and to the young adventurer these haunts and the tales told of them furnished idea and scope for many an escapade. Stories of Cromwellian and Stuart days, when Cavalier and Roundhead in turn found refuge in this land of his birth, and evidences of the resolute defence which the Islanders had offered to the maraudings and attackings of the French, fostered in Brock an ambition to emulate the Guernsey folk who were dead and gone. So, in boyhood days, he played for a while with the things of nature. He became strong and robust. He was, like his seven brothers, tall and manly, a precocious boy, a better boxer, a stronger and bolder swimmer than any of his companions. He would scale jagged headland, or sighting Castle Cornet, a landmark half a mile from the shore, would brest the swiftly-running tide, meeting and overcoming “ every wave with dimpled face That leaped upon the air.” He did not entirely neglect his studies, but gave some time to reading, particularly along historical lines. There seems to be no doubt, however, that, like many another boy, his prowess in games was gained at the expense of his education. At the age of ten he was sent to school at Southampton, and later was at Rotterdam, where his tutor was a French pastor. Neither his parents nor himself would be aware, at that time, of the use that the knowledge of French he there acquired would be to him when he came to Canada later on.