"GOD BLESS THE KERNEL."
And had you asked any of the ragged little lads that you met, who was "The Kernel," their faces would have lit up at once, while they told you that their "Kernel" was the best and bravest soldier in the world, and that his name was Colonel Gordon.
For six years after he left China, Gordon was Commanding Royal Engineer at Gravesend, and these years, he said, were "the most peaceful and happy of any portion of his life."
His work there was done, as all his work throughout his life was done, with all his might.
When he first took command he was worried by the amount of time that was wasted as he rowed from one port which he had to inspect, to another, in a pair-oared boat. He put away the pair-oared boat and got a four-oared gig, and soon had the men who pulled it trained to row him in racing style. They might sometimes have waited for hours on the chance of Colonel Gordon wanting them, but the minute his trim little figure was seen marching smartly down to the jetty, there was a rush for the boat. Almost before he was seated, the oars would be dipped and the men's backs bent as if they meant to win a boat race.
"A little faster, boys! a little faster!" Gordon would constantly say, and when he jumped ashore and hurried off to his work, he would leave behind him four very breathless men, who were proud of being the crew of the very fastest boat pulled in those waters.
The engineers under him he also trained never to lose any time,—always to do a thing not only as thoroughly and as well as possible, but as quickly as possible.
He would land at a port, and run up the steep earthworks in front of it, while his followers, many of them big, heavy men, would come puffing and panting after him.
One of his friends writes of him, "He was a severe and unsparing taskmaster, and allowed no shirking. No other officer could have got half the work out of the men that he did. He used to keep them up to the mark by exclaiming, whenever he saw them flag: 'Another five minutes gone, and this not done yet, my men! We shall never have them again.'"
The old-fashioned house, with its big old garden, which was Gordon's home during those six years, saw many strange guests during that time.