He had to tell somebody, he had to ease his heart of his burden.

And when he had once begun naturally he poured it all out before the boy.

He could not have told a man, a woman, perhaps, had one been by sufficiently sympathetic and tender, but, failing that, it was the boy who received the confidences and who never once presumed on these revelations.

Indeed, he had a vein of romance in his peasant heart.

He was a poet in his soul.