The people so loved him, that often instead of sending for the clergyman when in sickness or trouble, the poor would send for the Colonel living at Fort House, the official residence of the officer commanding the Royal Engineers. Even his house and garden seem to have been placed at the disposal of the poor in the neighbourhood. A visitor once remarked to his housekeeper on the beautiful vegetables his garden produced. She replied that the Colonel never touched them, but used to let the poor people come in and cultivate plots of ground in the garden, and grow their own vegetables; and even when presents of fruit were sent him by friends, he used to take them to the bedside of some sick person, who he thought needed them more than he did. As for his own food, nothing could have been more simple and plain. The Rev. S. H. Swaine says, "Coming home with us one afternoon late, we found his tea waiting for him--a most unappetising stale loaf and a teapot of tea. I remarked upon the dryness of the bread, when he took the whole loaf (a small one) and 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." It is said that some of the boys whom he invited to live in his house were a good deal disappointed when they saw the kind of fare that was put before them. They had fondly imagined that the occupant of such a grand house would have sumptuous meals, which they would share, and they were not prepared for the plain salt-beef, and other good but very plain food, to which the Colonel was in the habit of sitting down. But though he denied himself luxuries of any sort, he often used to take grapes and other dainties to the sick and the dying. All forms of distress aroused his interest; and when the late Canon Miller of Greenwich was collecting money for the suffering people at Coventry, during the cotton famine, Gordon took a large and valuable gold medal, that had been presented to him by the Empress of China, and having with a gouge scooped out his name, which was engraved upon it, put it into an envelope and despatched it to the Canon, merely notifying briefly the object for which it was sent. Efforts have been since made to discover the fate of the medal, which was of the best gold, and twice the size of a crown piece, but owing to the death of Canon Miller, they have hitherto been unsuccessful.