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.