CHAPTER XXXVII. SIR SIMON
My journey had so far fatigued me that I wasn't sorry to have a day of rest; and as Father Tom spent the greater part of it from home, I was left to myself and my own reflections. The situation in which I found myself was singular enough—the guest of a man whose acquaintance I had made by chance, and who, knowing as little of me as I did of him, yet showed by many an act of kindness, not less than by many a chance observation, a deep interest in myself and my fortunes. Here, then, I was—far from the sphere of my duties, neglecting the career I had adopted, and suffering days, weeks, to pass over without bestowing a thought upon my soldier life.
Following on this train of thought, I could not help acknowledging to myself that my attachment to Miss Bellew was the cause of my journey, and the real reason of my wandering. However sanguine may be the heart when touched by the first passion, the doubts that will now and then shoot across it are painful and poignant; and now, in the calmness of my judgment, I could not but see the innumerable obstacles my family would raise to all my hopes. I well knew my father's predilection for a campaigning life, and that nothing would compensate him for the defeat of this expectation. I had but too many proofs of my mother's aristocratic prejudices to suppose that she ever could acknowledge as her daughter-in-law one whose pretensions to rank, although higher than her own, were yet neither trumpeted by the world nor blazoned by fashion. And lastly, changed as I was myself since my arrival in Ireland, there was yet enough of the Englishman left in me to see how unsuited was Louisa Bellew, in many respects, to be launched forth in the torrent of London life, while yet her experience of the world was so narrow and limited. Still, I loved her. The very artless simplicity of her manner, the untutored freshness of her mind, had taught me to know that even great personal attractions may be the second excellence of a woman. And besides, I was just at that time of life when ambition is least natural. One deems it more heroic to renounce all that is daring in enterprise, all that is great in promise, merely to be loved. My mind was therefore made up. The present opportunity was a good one to see her frequently and learn thoroughly to know her tastes and her dispositions. Should I succeed in gaining her affections, however opposed my family might prove at first, I calculated on their fondness for me as an only son, and knew that in regard to fortune I should be independent enough to marry whom I pleased.
In speculations such as these the time passed over; and although I waited with impatience for the hour of our visit to Kilmorran Castle, still, as the time drew near, many a passing doubt would flit across me—how far I had mistaken the promptings of my own affection for any return of my love. True it was, that more than once Louisa's look and manner testified I was not indifferent to her; still, when I remembered that I had ever seen her surrounded by persons she was anxious to avoid, a suspicion crossed me that perhaps I owed the little preference she showed me less to any qualities I possessed than to my own unobtrusiveness. These were galling and unpleasant reflections; and whither they might have led me I know not, when the priest tapped with his knuckles at my window, and called out—
'Captain, we shall be late if you don't hurry a bit; and I had rather be behind time with his gracious Majesty himself than with old Sir Simon.'
I opened the window at once, and jumped out into the lawn.
'My dear father, I've been ready this half-hour, but fell into a dreamy fit and forgot everything. Are we to walk it?'
'No, no; the distance is much greater than you think. Small as the bay looks, it is a good three miles from this to Kilmorran; but here comes your old friend the curriculus.'
I once more mounted to my old seat, and the priest, guiding the horse down to the beach, selected the strand, from which the waves had just receded, as the hardest road, and pressed on at a pace that showed his desire to be punctual.