CHAPTER XXXII. ON THE ROCKS
It was a rare thing for Tony Butler to lie awake at night, and yet he did so for full an hour or more after that conversation with Skeffy. It was such a strange blunder for one of Skeffy's shrewdness to have made,—so inexplicable.
To imagine that he, Tony, had ever been in love with Dolly! Dolly, his playfellow since the time when the “twa had paidled i' the burn;” Dolly, to whom he went with every little care that crossed him, never shrinking for an instant from those avowals of doubt or difficulty that no one makes to his sweetheart. So, at least, thought Tony. And the same Dolly to whom he had revealed once, in deepest secrecy, that he was in love with Alice! To be sure, it was a boyish confession, made years ago; and since that Alice had grown up to be a woman, and was married, so that the story of the love was like a fairy tale.
“In love with Dolly!” muttered he. “If he had but ever seen us together, he would have known that could not be.” Poor Tony! he knew of love in its moods of worship and devotion, and in its aspect of a life-giving impulse,—a soul-filling, engrossing sentiment,—inspiring timidity when near, and the desire for boldness when away. With such alternating influence Dolly had never racked his heart. He sought her with a quiet conscience, untroubled by a fear.
“How could Skeffy make such a mistake! That it is a mistake, who would recognize more quickly than Dolly herself; and with what humorous drollery—a drollery all her own—would she not treat it! A rare punishment for your blunder, Master Skeffy, would it be to tell Dolly of it all in your presence;” and at last, wearied out with thinking, he fell asleep.
The day broke with one of those bright breezy mornings which, though “trying” to the nerves of the weak and delicate, are glorious stimulants to the strong. The sea plashed merrily over the rocks, and the white streaky clouds flew over the land with a speed that said it blew hard at sea. “Glorious day for a sail, Skeffy; we can beat out, and come back with a stern-wind whenever we like.”
“I 'll anticipate the wish by staying on shore, Tony.”
“I can't offer you a mount, Skeffy, for I am not the owner of even a donkey.”
“Who wants one? Who wants anything better than to go down where we were yesterday evening, under that big black rock, with the sea before us, and the whole wide world behind us, and talk? When a fellow lives as I do, cooped up within four walls, the range of his view some tiers of pigeon-holes, mere freedom and a sea-breeze are the grandest luxuries in creation;” and off they set, armed with an ample supply of tobacco, the life-buoy of those stragglers in the sea of thought who only ask to float, but not to reach the shore.
How delightfully did the hours pass over! At least, so Tony felt, for what a wonderful fellow was Skeffy! What had he not seen or heard or read? What theme was new, what subject unknown to him? But, above all, what a marvellous insight had he into the world,—the actual world of men and women! Great people were not to his eyes mighty gods and goddesses, seated loftily on a West-End Olympus, but fallible mortals, with chagrins about the court and grievances about invitations to Windsor. Ministers, too, whose nods shook empires, were humanities, very irritable under the gout, and much given to colchicum. Skeffy “knew the whole thing,”—he was not one of the mere audience. He lived in the green-room or in the “flats.” He knew all the secrets of state, from the splendid armaments that existed on paper, to the mock thunders that were manufactured and patented by F. O.