A VERY SIMPLE STORY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11604, 19 August 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

A VERY SIMPLE STORY.

By Geoffrey Mortimer.

(Author of c Tales from the Western Moors,' f Like Stars that Fall.') :o: ■ He had lined the old thatched mill and the willow tree with charcoal up. on the canvas. It was a windy afternoon in March with the rivers grey and the meadows in their early sprin s; green. The. gusts had upset the easel twice, and the painter's fingers •were numb.

A lissome girl with sleeves upturned to the elbows of her white arm=, came ont of the mill to sprinkle com for the fowls in the orchard. The breeze ruffled the fring a of yellow hair on ber forehead and tightened the skirt about her well built bhapely limbs.

'So you've finished for the day, Mr Hanson V she called to the artist who was picking up his easel. ' Yes, for to-day, Pollie. I'll be down in a day or two. I'll leave my traps with you.' He was a thinnish rather pale young man, with large thoughtful "brown eyes. The hands were whitp, and the fingers taper. He lived in one room over a picture-framer's shop in Scho, where hs finished his landscapes, cooVB his own meals and sleeps on a camp bed. He often came to Shipley for subjects. Sometimes he stays for two days at a mill} but he usually came down by the earliest train and letarned to Waterloo at dusk. He was very poor Pollie thought he was underfed and as if he might go into a decline. She stood at his model for a figure picture : and -while he painted he told her how he lived and \*orked aloce, independent of all worn sn folk. He told htv of his system of mending stockings, which hh 1 } thought a much better and easier plan than darning. "When I wast to me. d a hole in the heel,' he said, ' I get a bit of flannel, or anything and sew it on. lie laughed at his experiences; but she pitied him in her s>oft womanly heart. He was a man who needed a woman, a sister or a wife to look after and love him. Hanson thought so too, and in his dreary solitude in the Soho room?, he yearned for the love and companionship of a woman. But where was the girl who would share his henings and his oatmeal porridge. 'No> there was bo love for him; no distress but Art ; and he wooed her and strove to banish the mocking dreams of a life of simple happiness with Pollie. It would be cruel even if it were possible to transplant this fair Surrey flower into the fetid at. mosphere of Soho. t*'ome day luck might change anrt then he would coooe to live in a cottage at Shipley. It -was not too far from the dealers. He •would be in the mickt of unexhaustible subjects for his brush ; and he •would grow his own vegetables, and Pollie would keep poultry and bees. It wa3 a sweet idol to contemplate. But he was gradually losing hope of its consummation. Adversity was destroying his optimism. In a corner of the orchard thpre was a waving nodding mass of daffodils. The buds had opened in yester. day's sunshine. Hanson picked a large bouquet, thinking that the flowers -would make a charming bit of still life arranged in an old blue ■vase. They would adorn hia room, too, for a few days, until the air of London made them droop and die away. It was dark when he r assed through a reekins? slum region on his way to the attic which he called home. Children were playing along tbe g«»tters and playing at hopscotch on the Stone 3.

' Gi'me a flower, gi'me a flower,' a little ragged girl cried, following him along the street. 'Yes, I'll give you a flower,' he said, and a grimy, pudgy hand seized the sweet Shipley daffodil. ' Gi'me one, sir, gi'me a flower. Do gi'me a flower/ pleaded a rag -tag of urchins at Haneon's heels.

' Yes, you Bhall each have one, I can get more when i go into the country and you never go there.' From every corner the children came miming. ' Gi'me a flower, sir, please.

'There that is tbe last/ said the artist, as he gave the last flower to a

wee ghi who had been crushed down by the scramble.

' J woader why this little adventure has made lie feel so absurdly happy? J he asked himself when he had reached his gairet. ' Poor children, I did not th'nk a f ew flowers would give them so much pleasure. How strange to find the love of beauty in th^se stieet arabs.'

The summer came. At Shipley the mill stream was blue with laughing wavelets under th*> glowing midday sky. It's banks were thickly fringed with purple loosestrife, wilow weed, and almond-scented mcidow-sweet. In the field by the church there were prreat mulleins, with stalks four high and spiked top 3of yellow buds in sheaths of great velvet. There we^e corn-cockles, pippies, honeysuckle, and wild roses Hanson gathered large bunches of flowers for the children of the Soho courts. Twice a week they waited for the flower man at twilight. The greeted him with shrill cri^s of welcome; they swarmed around him on the kerb, clamouriag for flowers. Men standing at the entrance of courts nodded at Hanson, and said.

' Come round ageD, then guv'ner ? The kids know your time." Once a girl with pa>nt on her cheek, and the taint of gin in her breath, begged a few bits of honeysuckle from the flower man.

' I love a flower,' she said. I was brought uo amoog them.'

Afte^r a f-w weeks Hanson knew the laces of many of them. The mothers standing in the cool of the eveniap: to gossip, after a day's charing, toid their troubles to Hanson. They thought he was connected with some mission. He said, 'I am as poor as any of you. it costs me nothing to give these flowers to the children, and besides it ia the only way in which I am able to brighten their lives.

He often went" home saddened by the stories of suffering he had heard; and more than once he lay awake Through the stifling nights, sleep^ss through pondering hopelessly upon the misery of the slums. He could spare no money ; but he often went without a supper because he had given away his Jast coin.

'Why do you brcrd ahout these thiDgs ? You can't mend them,' said the picture dealer who made three hundred per cent on Hanson's p!etures.

Meanwhile Pollie saw that the artist was becoming more despondent and hia cheek* thinner. One day he took her hand and said : ' Pollie I have loved you for many months. I have dreamed of living with you. I have been very happy. But I have never asked you to marry me. lam one of those luckless individuals who are dogsei by poverty. lam one of the unfit. Only you, and the slum children will miss me. I may not not live six months. I am growiog weaker and weaker every day. ' I will nurse you. I will love you, Make me your wife/ she cried. ' And leave you widowed ia a few months.'

' Yes, if it must be so. 1 love you. I'h how I pity you. ' I will live,' he cried. 'Your love gives me new hope.'