10 HIS MEDALS.

power was due to natural astuteness, or how much to his own clear singleness of mind and freedom from self that the truth about everything seemed revealed to him. The workhouse and the infirmary were his constant haunts, and of pensioners he had a countless number all over the neighbourhood. Many of the dying sent for him in preference to the clergy, and ever ready was he to visit them, no matter in what weather or at what distance. But he would never take the chair at a religious meeting, or be in any way prominent. He was always willing to conduct services for the poor and address a sweeps’ tea-meeting ; but all public speechifying, especially where complimentary speeches were made in his honour, he loathed. All eating and drinking he was indifferent to. Coming home with us one afternoon late, we found his tea waiting for him—a most unappetizing stale loaf and a tea-pot of tea. I remarked upon the dryness of the bread, when he tock the whole loaf (a small one), crammed it into the slop-basin, and poured all the tea upon it, saying it would soon be ready for him to eat, and in half-an-hour it would not matter what he had eaten. He always had dry, humorous little speeches at command that flavoured all his talk, and I remember the merry twinkle with which he told us that many of the boys, thinking that being invited to live with the Colonel meant delicate fare and luxury, were unpleasantly enlightened upon that point when they found he sat down with them to salt beef and just the necessary food. He kindly gave usa key to his garden, thinking our children might like to walk there sometimes. The first time my husband and I visited it, we remarked what nice peas and vegetables of all kinds there were, and the housekeeper coming out, we made some such remark to her. She at once told us that the Colonel never tasted them—that nearly all the garden, a large one, was cultivated by different poor people to whom he gave permission to plant what they chose, and to take the proceeds. She added that it often happened that presents of fine fruit and flowers would be sent to the Colonel, and that he would never so much as taste them, but take them or send them at once to the hospital or workhouse for the sick. He always thanked the donors, but never told.them how their gifts had been appreciated. We used to say he had no self, in that following his Divine Master. He would never talk of himself and his doings; therefore his life never can and never will be written. It was in these years that the first book about him came out. He allowed the author to come and stay at Fort House, and gave him every facility towards bringing out his book (all the particulars about the Tai-ping Rebellion) even to lending him his diary. Then, from some- thing that was said, he discovered that personal acts of his own (bravery, possibly) were described, and he asked to see what had been written. Then he tore out page after page the parts about himself, to the poor author’s chagrin, who told him he had spoiled his book. I tried to get at the bottom of this feeling of his, telling him he might be justly proud of these things; but was answered that no man has a right to be proud of anything, inasmuch as he has no native good in him—he has received it all.”

His MEDALS,

“He had a great number of medals, for which he cared nothing. There was a gold one, however, given to him by the Empress of China, with a special inscription engraved upon it, for which he had a great liking. But it suddenly disappeared; no one knew where or how. Years afterwards it was found out, by a curious accident, that Gordon had erased the inscription, and sent the medal anonymously to Canon

Miller, to be sold for the relief of the sufferers from the cotton famine

at Manchester.”