in good company 36

in good company 36

IV

 

His unfailing sense of humour, his boyish and buoyant love of fun,

like the cork jacket by means of which a swimmer rides an incoming

wave, carried Stone through difficulties which would have depressed

another. Let me put one such instance on record. To brighten in any

way the drab days of the poorest folks in his East End parish, he

counted a privilege as well as a happiness, and he was constantly

devising means for bringing some new gladness to their lives--the

gift of a sorely needed bit of furniture, or a coveted ornament, a

boating party with the children in Victoria Park, a magic-lantern

entertainment--anything in fact which seemed to him likely to make

them forget their many troubles and to call them out of themselves.

 

Most of the women in his parish were poor, many pitifully so. Here

was a wife toiling all day in a laundry, to keep the home together,

while her husband was out of work, or worse still, while her husband

was on the drink; and there, a widow, the sole support of several

children.

 

One day when Stone received an unexpected cheque--I think it was for

the sale of his book of poems--he unfolded to me, radiant himself

with happiness at the thought, a plan for taking some score of the

very poorest mothers of the parish for an outing to Southend.

 

The great day--as it was in the lives of these poor people--came, and

was fortunately fine. The party caught an early train to Southend,

spent a long summer day by the sea, gathered at the appointed time,

happy if tired, at the railway station, to find that Stone had

misread the time-table, and that the last train to London had just

gone. Here were some twenty mothers--mostly with husbands who looked

to them for the preparation and cooking of supper at night, and of

breakfast next morning. To these husbands telegrams of explanation

and appeasement must, if the worse came to the worst, and return that

night were impossible, be despatched. Other mothers there were with

children awaiting their mother’s home-coming for a last meal and to

be put to bed; and all the twenty good women--if to London they could

not get that night--themselves requiring supper, and some decent

place in which to sleep. Stone’s face, brick-red with mortified

self-anger at his own muddling, as the agitated mothers crowded and

clamoured around him, two or three shrilly or tearfully expatiating

on the terrible things that would await them at the hands of their

lord and master, should that lord and master and the children go

supperless to bed, and rise breakfastless next morning, was, I am

told, a study in dismay and bewilderment, until he discovered that,

by paying for it out of his own pocket, a special train could be run.

 

Relieved to find that no one except himself would have to suffer for

his carelessness, and even while ruefully regarding the document by

the signing of which he made himself responsible for the entire cost

(no inconsiderable sum to a poor man as he was) of the special train,

the Gilbertian side of the situation--that he, a bachelor, should

have a score of wives and mothers upon his hands--dawned upon him. He

broke, so my informant tells me, into bluff and hearty Berserker-like

laughter, till his chestnut beard wagged, and his burly form rocked;

and vowing that--though he must in consequence go short for many a

day of every luxury--the lesson he had received, and the story which

he would then be able to tell against himself, were cheap at the

price, he signed the document, and made mock of himself and his own

carelessness all the way home.

 

Another story was once told me of Stone, concerning the accuracy

of which I have my doubts. What happened might well, I admit, have

happened to him, but my impression is that it was a friend of his who

was the guilty party. However, here is the story, as it was told me,

of Stone.

 

He was to take an afternoon service at a church--I think in Hoxton.

Like many poets and some clergymen he was not always punctual, and

when he arrived he surmised, by the fact that the bell had stopped,

and that there was no thin and dribbling stream of late-comers

filing through the doors, that he was more than a little late. The

congregation as he saw was on its knees, so diving into the vestry,

which was empty, he hastily threw his surplice over his head, and

hurrying to his place in the chancel, read out the opening words of

the Evening Prayer.

 

“When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath

committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save

his soul alive,” and thence passed on to the familiar “Dearly beloved

brethren,” and so on to the end of the service--to discover when

returning to the vestry, that he had inflicted upon the unfortunate

congregation the penance of two Evensongs on the same afternoon. He

had been under the impression that the service commenced at four

o’clock, whereas the hour fixed was three. In Stone’s absence the

curate-in-charge had felt that there was nothing for it but for him,

the curate, to read the service himself, which he did, and in fact

he had made an end of it, had pronounced the Benediction, and for

some reason had left the church, not by the vestry, but by another

door leading direct to the vicarage. It was the custom at the church

in question for the congregation to stand while the clergy were

passing out, and to return to their knees for a brief silent prayer,

after the clergy had passed out. It was at this moment that Stone is

supposed to have arrived and hurried in, to begin the service all

over again.

 

 

V

 

At Oxford Stone had been an athlete, and an athlete and

sportsman--oarsman, skater, fisherman and first-class shot--he

remained almost to his life’s end. He was captain of the Pembroke

boat, and stroked the college eight. Legend has it that he was

chosen for his “Blue”--but did not have the honour of rowing against

Cambridge for the following reason.

 

Between his merits as an oarsman and those of another candidate,

there was absolutely nothing to choose. The other man was as good as,

but no better than Stone, and Stone was as good as, but no better

than, the other. As a way out of the difficulty it was thought best

to decide the question by the spin of a coin, and Stone’s luck was

uppermost. He was delighted, for no man would more eagerly have

coveted his “Blue” than he, until he learned that it was a matter

of “now or never” for his rival, who was shortly going down, and so

would stand no other chance of rowing in the great race. As it could

matter neither way for the boat’s success which had the seat, Stone,

who was staying on at Pembroke and so would be eligible another year,

pleaded that his rival be given this, his only chance--with the

result that Stone’s own second chance never came.

 

So runs the legend of how Stone missed his “Blue.” As I never

questioned him concerning its truth, and he was the last man to speak

of such an incident himself, I relate it merely as it was related to

me, and with no other comment than that such impulsive generosity is

just what might have been expected from this clerical Don Quixote of

lost causes, lost chances, forlorn hopes and self-forgetful chivalry.

 

To say of a man that all his geese were swans, as was often said of

Stone, implies, indirectly, that he was something of a fool, if a

generous one. It is true that Stone wished to think well of whatever

a friend had done. If it were ill done he was not so blind as not

to know it was ill done, and was too honest not to say so, if asked

for an opinion, or to remain silent, if unasked. But if it were not

ill done, then young and keen-visioned Joy, as well as dim-eyed Dame

Pride alike clapped magnifying glasses on nose, to show him the thing

not as it was, but as it appeared through the eyes of joy and pride

in a friend’s work.

 

So, too, in regard to the friend himself. If Stone saw, or thought

he saw, in his friend, some streak, no matter how rudimentary or

infinitesimal of, let us say unselfishness, he saw it not as it was

in his friend, but magnified to the scale in which it existed in

himself. Hence his appreciation of a friend’s gifts or qualities and

his own gratitude for some small service rendered were preposterously

out of all proportion to the facts. For instance, I had been at some

quite small trouble in reading, by his wish, the proofs of his _Lays

of Iona_, and also, by his wish, in sending him my criticisms. Here

is his letter (Oct. 23, 1897) in acknowledgment:

 

MY DEAR KERNAHAN,

 

What _thoroughness_ of friendship you have shown me from first

to last in the matter of the _Lays_! Certainly I will alter the

“no” to “not” in the Preface, if a second edition permits me. I

had not noticed the error and jumped with a “How could I”! of

exclamation when I read your note. You comforted me very much in

the latter part of your note when you spoke of sundry passages

you approved, especially by what you said of the humorous part of

the work. I had specially feared about this, and indeed I had put

in these two occasional pieces only to please my sister.

 

Good-bye, dear friend,

 

Ever yours gratefully and affectionately,

S. J. STONE.

 

Everyone who knew Stone intimately will bear me out in saying that

the gratitude here expressed, and disproportionate as it may be, was

absolutely sincere. He literally glowed with gratitude for any small

service done, or trivial personal kindness, and said no word more

than he meant in making his acknowledgment, for of “gush,” of what

was effusive or insincere, he had something like horror, and was as

incapable of it, as he was of falsehood or of craft. And in regard

to men and women whom he loved, it was not so much that he mistook

geese for swans, as that he remembered that, on land, a swan’s waddle

is no less unlovely than a goose’s, whereas, on water or on wing, a

goose, no less than a swan, is not without grace. He idealised his

friends--he saw in his mind’s eyes, his geese a-wing in the heavens

or a-sail on water, as well as waddling on land, and loved them for

the possibilities, and for the hidden graces he saw within. He was by

no means the merely credulous, if generous fool, that some thought

him. On the contrary, for most human weaknesses, he had an uncommonly

shrewd and sharp eye, but he appealed always to the best and noblest,

never to the vain or selfish side of those with whom he came into

contact, and so his own unwavering faith in God, in Christ, and in

human nature, was not only the cause of, but seemed to create similar

and sincere faith on the part of others, just as his own integrity

made even the rascal or the infirm of purpose ashamed of rascality or

of weakness. But tricked, betrayed and deceived, or confronted with evil, Stone’s wrath was terrible and consuming.