ious escapade, though innocent of any bad intention, nearly
caused his arrest by the police. At last it was agreed that he should
emigrate to Australia. He was glad to go, but bitter at the thought of
what his going implied. The knowledge that he suffered solely through
his own fault did not make less disagreeable to him the censure of
others, even that of the gallant father whom, in his wildest moments of
rebellion, he never ceased to love and admire. The unhappiness attending
this severance from the home that he felt he would never see again is
told in a poem to his sister, written (August, 1853) a few days before
he sailed.

'Across the trackless seas I go,
No matter when or where;
And few my future lot will know,
And fewer still will care.
My hopes are gone, my time is spent,
I little heed their loss,
And if I cannot feel content,
I cannot feel remorse.

'My parents bid me cross the flood,
My kindred frowned at me;
They say I have belied my blood,
And stained my pedigree.
But I must turn from those who chide,
And laugh at those who frown;
I cannot quench my stubborn pride,
Or keep my spirits down.

'I once had talents fit to win
Success in life's career;
And if I chose a part of sin,
My choice has cost me dear.
But those who brand me with disgrace,
Will scarcely dare to say
They spoke the taunt before my face
And went unscathed away.'

The stanzas (there are ten more in the poem) have all the bitterness of
a youthful sorrow and all the vigour of a youthful defiance. But at the
moment of his deepest depression it is upon himself that the writer
casts the real blame. This is characteristic of his judgment of himself
throughout life. He has ever too much honour and spirit to shirk the
responsibility of his own acts. And the same qualities keep him from
doing injury to others. He is consoled by remembering this in bidding
good-bye to his native land.

'If to error I incline,
Truth whispers comfort strong,
That never reckless act of mine
E'er worked a comrade wrong.'

As a colonist, Gordon might have justified his Scotch descent by making
a fortune. Wealth was to be gained in other and surer ways than by
groping for it in the goldfields. But he was indifferent, and allowed
himself to drift. Australia was attractive to him only as a place of
adventure, of freedom, of retirement, of oblivion. All but the latter he
fo