I would be liberal.
“’Tis somehow sort o’ comfortable, lad,” says he, eying me with honest feeling, “t’ be sittin’ down here with a ol’ chum like you. ’Tis very good, indeed.”
I was glad that he thought so.
And now I must tell that I loved Judith. ’Tis enough to say so––to write the bare words down. I’m not wanting to, to be sure: for it shames a man to speak boldly of sacred things like this. It shames a lad, it shames a maid, to expose the heart of either, save sacredly to each other. ’Tis all well enough, and most delightful, when the path is moonlit and secluded, when the warmth and thrill of a slender hand may be felt, when the stars wink tender encouragement from the depths of God’s own firmament, when all the world is hushed to make the opportunity: ’tis then all well enough to speak of love. There is nothing, I know, to compare in ecstasy with the whisper and sigh and clinging touch of that time––to compare with the awe and mystery and solemnity of it. But ’tis sacrilegious and most desperately difficult and embarrassing, I find, at this distant day, to write of it. I had thought much upon love, at that wise age––fifteen, it was, I fancy––and it seemed to me, I recall, a thing to cherish within the heart of a man, to hide as a treasure, to dwell upon, alone, in moments of purest exaltation. ’Twas not a thing to bandy about where punts lay tossing in the lap of the sea; ’twas not a thing to tell the green, secretive old hills of Twin Islands; ’twas not a thing to which the doors of the workaday world might be opened, lest the ribaldry to which it come offend and wound it: ’twas a thing to conceal, far and deep, from the common gaze and comment, from the vulgar chances, the laugh and cynical exhaustion and bleared wit of the life we live. I loved Judith––her eyes and tawny hair and slender 213 finger-tips, her whimsical way, her religious, loving soul. I loved her; and I would not have you think ’twas any failure of adoration to pour my uncle an honest dram of rum when she was stowed away in innocency of all the evil under the moon. ’Tis a thing that maids have nothing to do with, thinks I; ’tis a knowledge, indeed, that would defile them....
“Dannie,” says my uncle, once, when we were left alone, “he’ve begun t’ fall.”
I was mystified.
“The parson,” he explained, in a radiant whisper; “he’ve begun t’ yield.”
“T’ what?” I demanded.