He was no subscriber to the belief that the army must necessarily be a refuge of rapscallions.

"Straighten your shoulders, sir; hold your head high; for, remember that you are now a soldier!" he would say to the newest recruit who had just scraped through with a margin of chest.

His thunderous wrath and sorrow when one of his "boys" was guilty of conduct unbecoming a soldier were something which, in time, impressed even the least impressionable.

His old regiment, which he delighted to talk about, he had left a model regiment.
"There's a deal of good in the soldier-man," he would say to his daughter Nelly.

"The poor fellows, they're good boys, they're very good boys." Sir Denis had married, as he was approaching middle age, a very beautiful young girl, who had fallen in love at first with the soldier, and afterwards with the man.
His Nell had left him in his daughter Nelly a replica of herself.