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 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."