The Life of Gordon, Volume I

by Demetrius Charles Boulger

If the six years at Gravesend, "the most peaceful and happy of any portion of my life," as he truly said, had left no other trace than his official work, of which the details must necessarily be meagre, there would have been a great blank in his life, and the reader would necessarily possess no clue to the marked change between the Gordon of China and the Gordon of the Soudan. Not that there was any loss of power or activity, but in the transition period philanthropy had come to occupy the foremost place in Gordon's brain, where formerly had reigned supreme professional zeal and a keen appreciation—I will not say love—of warlike glory. His private life and work at Gravesend explain and justify what was said of him at that time by one of his brother officers: "He is the nearest approach to Jesus Christ of any man who ever lived."

It has been written of him that his house at Gravesend bore more resemblance to the home of a missionary than the quarters of an English officer. His efforts to improve and soften the hard lot of the poor in a place like Gravesend began in a small way, and developed gradually into an extensive system of beneficence, which was only limited by his small resources and the leisure left him by official duty. At first he took into his house two or three boys who attracted his attention in a more or less accidental manner. He taught them in the evening, fed and clothed them, and in due course procured for them employment, principally as sailors or in the colonies. For a naturally bad sailor, he was very fond of the sea; and perhaps in his heart of hearts he cherished the thought that he was performing a national work in directing promising recruits to the first line of our defence, and the main prop of this Empire. Soon his few special pupils swelled into a class, not all boarders, but of outsiders who came in to learn geography and hear the Colonel explain the Bible; and not only that, but to be told of stirring deeds beyond the sea by one who had himself contributed to the making of history. We can well believe that before this uncritical but appreciative audience, from whose favour he had nothing to hope, or, as he would say, to fear, Gordon threw off the restraint and shyness habitual to him. It was very typical of the man that, where others thought only of instructing the poor and the ignorant, his chief wish was to amuse them and make them laugh.

By this simple means his class increased, and grew too large for his room. Sooner than break it up or discourage new-comers, he consented to teach in the ragged schools, where he held evening classes almost every night. Where he had clothed two or three boys, he now distributed several hundred suits in the year; and it is said that his pupils became so numerous that he had to buy pairs of boots by the gross. All this was done out of his pay. His personal expenses were reduced to the lowest point, so that the surplus might suffice to carry on the good work. It very often left him nearly penniless until his next pay became due—and this was not very surprising, as he could never turn a deaf ear to any tale of distress, and often emptied his pockets at the recital of any specially touching misfortune. When any outside subject of national suffering appealed to his heart or touched his fancy, he would consequently have no means available of sending any help, and this was specially the case during the suffering of the Lancashire operatives after the close of the American Civil War. On that occasion he defaced the gold medal given him by the Chinese Empresses, and sent it anonymously to the fund, which benefited from it to the extent of £10; but, as has been already stated, he made this sacrifice with the greatest pain and reluctance.

Gordon's love of children, and especially of boys, was quite remarkable. He could enter into their feelings far better than he could into those of grown men, and the irritability which he could scarcely suppress even among his friends was never displayed towards them. He was always at their service, anxious to amuse them, and to minister to their rather selfish whims. Some accidental remark led his class to express a wish to visit the Zoo. Gordon at once seized the idea, and said they should do so. He made all the arrangements as carefully as if he were organising a campaign. His duties prevented his going himself, but he saw them off at the station, under the charge of his assistant, and well provided with baskets of food for their dinner and refreshment on their journey. Of course he defrayed the whole expense, and on their return he gave them a treat of tea and strawberries. He also thought of their future, being most energetic in procuring them employment, and anxious in watching their after-career.

For some reason that is not clear he called these boys his "kings." He probably used it in the sense that they were his lieutenants, and he borrowed his imagery from the "Wangs," or kings of the Taeping ruler. I am told, however, that he really used the word in a spiritual sense, testifying that these boys were as kings in the sight of God. He followed the course of the first voyage of those who went to sea, sticking pins in a map to show the whereabouts of their respective vessels. It is not astonishing that his pupils should have felt for him a special admiration and affection. He not merely supplied all their wants, but he endeavoured to make them self-reliant, and to raise them above the sordid and narrow conditions of the life to which they were either born or reduced by the improvidence or misfortune of their parents. Of course Gordon was often deceived, and his confidence and charity abused; but these cases were, after all, the smaller proportion of the great number that passed through his hands. He sometimes met with gross ingratitude, like that of the boy whom he found starving, in rags, and ill with disease, and whom he restored to health, and perhaps to self-respect, and then sent back to his parents in Norfolk. But neither from him nor from them did he ever receive the briefest line of acknowledgment. Such experiences would have disheartened or deterred other philanthropists, but they failed to ruffle Gordon's serenity, or to discourage him in his work.

Perhaps the following incident is as characteristic as anything that took place between Gordon and his "kings." A boy whom he had twice fitted out for the world, but who always came to grief after a few months' trial, returned for a third time in the evening. Gordon met him at the gate, a mass of rags, in a deplorable condition, and covered with vermin. Gordon could not turn him away, neither could he admit him into his house, where there were several boys being brought up for a respectable existence. After a moment's hesitation, he led him in silence to the stable, where, after giving him some bread and a mug of milk, he told him to sleep on a heap of clean straw, and that he would come for him at six in the morning. At that hour Gordon appeared with a piece of soap, some towels, and a fresh suit of clothes, and, ordering the boy to strip, gave him a thorough washing with his own hands from head to foot at the horse-trough. It is to be regretted that there is no record of the after-fate of this young prodigal, although it would be pleasant to think that he was the unknown man who called at Sir Henry Gordon's house in 1885, after the news of Gordon's death, and wished to contribute £25 towards a memorial, because he was one of the youths saved by General Gordon, to whom all his success and prosperity in life were due.

But it must not be supposed that Gordon's acts of benevolence were restricted to boys. He was not less solicitous of the welfare of the sick and the aged. His garden was a rather pretty and shaded one. He had a certain number of keys made for the entrance, and distributed them among deserving persons, chiefly elderly. They were allowed to walk about, in the evening especially, and see the flowers, vegetables, and fruit which Gordon's gardener carefully cultivated. Gordon himself declared that he derived no special pleasure from the sight of flowers, for the simple reason that he preferred to look at the human face; and the same reason is the only one I can find he ever gave for his somewhat remarkable reticence about dogs and other domestic animals. It was said of him that he always had handy "a bit o' baccy for the old men, and a screw o' tea for the old women." He would hurry off at a moment's notice to attend to a dying person or to read the Bible by a sick-bed. In the hospital or the workhouse he was as well known as the visiting chaplain, and often he was requested by the parish clergyman to take his place in visiting the sick. His special invention for the benefit of his large number of clients was a system of pensions, which varied from a shilling to as much as a pound a week. Many of these payments he continued long after he left Gravesend, and a few were even paid until the day of his death. It is not surprising, in view of these facts, that Gordon remained a poor man, and generally had no money at all. As he wrote very truly of himself to his assistant Mr Lilley, "You and I will never learn wisdom in money matters."

Many stories have been told of his tenderness of heart, and of his reluctance to see punishment inflicted, but perhaps the following is the most typical. A woman called on him one day with a piteous tale. Gordon went to his bedroom to get half a sovereign for her, and while he was away she took a fancy to a brown overcoat, which she hastened to conceal under her skirt. Gordon returned, gave her the money, and she left with a profusion of thanks. While on her road home the coat slipped down, and attracted the notice of a policeman, who demanded an explanation. She said, "I took it from the Colonel," and was marched back for him to identify his property, and charge her with the theft. When Gordon heard the story, he was far more distressed than the culprit, and refused to comply with the constable's repeated requests to charge her. At last a happy thought came to his relief. Turning to the woman, he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "You wanted it, I suppose?" "Yes," replied the astonished woman. Then turning to the equally astonished policeman he said, "There, there, take her away, and send her about her business."

Among the various economies he practised in order to indulge his philanthropy was that of not keeping a horse, and he consequently took a great deal of walking exercise. During his walks along the Kentish lanes and foot-paths he distributed tracts, and at every stile he crossed he would leave one having such an exhortation as "Take heed that thou stumbleth not." Yet all this was done in an honest, and, as I believe, a secretly humorous spirit of a serious nature, for Gordon was as opposed to cant and idle protestations as any man. There is a strikingly characteristic story preserved somewhere of what he did when a hypocritical, canting humbug of a local religious secretary of some Society Fund or other paid a visit to a house while he was present. Gordon remained silent during the whole of the interview. But when he was gone, and Gordon was asked what he thought of him, he replied by waving his hand and drawing it across his throat, which he explained signified in China that his head ought to be cut off as a humbugging impostor.

Although buried, as it were, at Gravesend, Gordon could not be altogether forgotten. The authorities at the Horse Guards could not comply with his request to be attached to the Abyssinian expedition, but they were willing enough to do him what in official circles was thought to be a very good turn when they could. The English membership of the Danubian Commission became vacant, and it was remembered that in his early days Gordon had taken part in the delimitation negotiations which had resulted in the formation of that body. The post carried with it the good pay of £2000 a year, as some compensation for the social and sanitary drawbacks and disadvantages of life in that region, and it was offered to Gordon, who accepted it. It cut short his philanthropical labours, but it drew him back into that current of active work for which he was already pining. He therefore accepted it, and having presented some of the Snake flags of the old Taeping Wangs to the local school in which he had toiled as a simple teacher, he left Gravesend quietly, and without any manifestation that it had lost its principal resident. Having mentioned the Snake flags, it is proper to add that the principal of these, including some of his own which were shot to ribbons, were left by General Gordon to his sister, the late Miss Gordon, who in her turn presented them, with the Yellow Jacket and its appendages, the chief mandarin dress, etc., to the Royal Engineers at Chatham. The Gravesend life closed with a notice in the local journal, from which the following extract may be made; but once a year the old flags that led the advance or retreat of the Chinese rebels are brought out from their cases and flaunted before the Gravesend scholars as the memorial of a brave and unselfish leader and teacher.