That is Cadet Clinker all through; if he is going to fess, he'll "fess cold." No one knows better than he how many demerits a man may get and still keep his place in the corps; or what delicate shades of meaning there are about "taking advantage of permits." So he runs it here and runs it there; goes off limits in all sorts of ways, places, and times, and gets help from all the friendly smugglers that infest the Post. He is one who entraps others, serving out his stores in many-coloured glasses or dainty cups, teaching the younger men strange oaths and unwholesome ways; making many a weak boy ashamed of his mother's counsels and his father's rules.
"Il y a des héros en mal, comme en bien."
You see he is such a pleasant fellow,—handsome, rich, plausible; a great favourite with the ladies; and with a head about equally divided between folly and mathematics. Excellent gifts, all thrown away; and worst of all, thrown where they are stumbling blocks for other men. But he is a tremendous favourite all the same, with much more courage to do wrong than he has to do right.
It is a thing to see Mr. Clinker come forth and walk about the Post, a day or two after one of his prize-fight exploits. His mouth is swelled, his eyes bruised, his nose knocked out of all its fine proportions. But he steps jauntily along, and the pretty girl at his side gazes up into the disfigured face as if Clinker were one of the first defenders of the country, newly risen from the shadows of old Fort Clinton.
To-night Magnus watched him coming over the plain, and thought of Mr. Wayne's words. No, he had never prayed for Clinker, much less tried to win him to better ways. And Cadet Kindred remarked to himself, quite privately, that he would rather "pull him out of the river" than do that, every time.
Mr. Wayne stayed over Sunday, and Magnus spent with him every minute that he could. The day was still and mild, so they could be out of doors the whole time; and I hardly know which of them enjoyed it most.
"If surroundings made men, you cadets should be the noblest set on earth!" Mr. Wayne broke forth, as late in the afternoon they walked up from Battery Knox, and paused in the little clearing where "Dade and his Command" will be thought of for many a long day. "Such wonders of beauty on every side, in mountains and sky and river; and whichever way you turn, such reminders of men who have 'fought a good fight' on the field of honour. Look at the old flag, and think how it has been shot at and insulted; defied and threatened; yet how splendidly it floats off to-day! And the guns that lie sleeping beneath its shadow were captured by men who knew no such words as 'hard' or 'easy.' And the great iron links once stretched across the river tell of other chains triumphantly broken, in the face of fearful odds. On all sides you find written: 'Faithful unto death.' Life purpose, life and death effort, life-blood, have done it all; the blood of men who 'counted not their life dear unto themselves' when the country had need. And the one traitor among them—why, you will not have his name even in sight! His tablet is a blank."
Slowly pacing up the walk again, Mr. Wayne went on, half to himself:
"Then Paul answered: 'What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.' Magnus" (with sudden change of tone) "when we parted two years ago at the Grand Central, I bade you make friends with the flag; now I tell you to open a recruiting office. I think you Christian men in the corps are making a grand mistake."
"If you cannot reach the nation,
Gather in the men you know:
Teach your friend the way to glory—
Draw your comrade where you go."