be laid on the isolated cases cited of his indifference
to his personal comfort. Gordon was always attentive to his dress and
appearance, never forgetting that he was a gentleman and an English
officer.

While quartered at Gravesend he received a visit from Sir William
Gordon, who had just been appointed to the command of the troops in
Scotland. Sir William was no relation, only a member of the same great
clan, and he had served with Gordon in the trenches of the Crimea. He
had a great admiration and affection for the younger officer, and
begged him to accept the post of his _aide-de-camp_ in the North. The
idea was not a pleasant one to our Gordon, but his good-nature led him
to yield to the pressing invitations of his friend; and after he had
given his assent, he was ill with nervousness and regret at having
tied himself down to an uncongenial post. In some way or other Sir
William heard of his distress, and promptly released him from his
promise, only exacting from him the condition that he should pay him a
visit at his home in Scotland. Soon afterwards Sir William Gordon
became seriously ill, and Charles Gordon hastened to the North, where
he remained some time employed in cheering up his friend, who was
suffering from hypochondria. Some time afterwards Sir William died
under sad circumstances. He had wished to benefit General Gordon by
his will, but the latter absolutely refused to have anything except a
silver tea service, which he had promised Sir William, while alive, to
accept, because "it would pay for his funeral," and save any one being
put to expense over that inevitable ceremony. The fate of this tea
service, valued at L70, cannot be traced. It had disappeared long
before Gordon's departure for Khartoum, and was probably sold for some
beneficent work.

The Sir William Gordon incident was not the only external affair that
distracted his attention from the monotonous routine work of building
forts on a set, but faulty and mistaken, plan. Glad as he was of any
work, in preference to the dull existence of a prolonged holiday in
the domestic circle, Gravesend was not, after all, the ideal of active
service to a man who had found the excitement of warfare so very
congenial to his own temperament. When, in the course of 1867 it
became evident that an expedition would have to be sent to Abyssinia
to release the prisoners, and to bring the Negus Theodore to his
senses, Gordon solicited the Horse Guards to includ