"That's right, call me anything you like. I'm not particular." "The car is at the door. We had best be starting, if ye want to catch yez train," said Phinias. "Oh, yes, yes," cried the coal-merchant, who was only too terribly anxious to get out of the land of the shillelagh. Phinias and he were soon driving rapidly in the uncomfortable cart to the railway station. He never felt so pleased in his life as when he got into the train. He was heard to remark to one or two farmers on his return journey that "The Desmond, ridiculous name, looked a very young man." The farmers stared but made no comment. Thus did Malachi and Fergus save their father from a shock, which would have undoubtedly half killed him, for the Irish pride is like no other pride. It sinks into the heart, it eats the very vitals and has been known many and many a time to destroy life. CHAPTER XVII. IF IT MUST BE IT MUST. When one is young and when one is happy time goes fast; nay, more, time goes like lightning. There is the beautiful joy of existence, there is the exquisite feeling of love. There is the happiness in which each hour is occupied, fully, entirely, completely, for the use of others. Such was the case with little Margot St. Juste. She played with the sunshiny passing hours, she sat on The Desmond's knee and brought back such superb and astounding accounts of her rides on Starlight that something stirred in the old man's breast and he felt that he himself must, forsooth, go a-riding with this fascinating little colleen. Accordingly the _King of the Desmonds_ was brought out and Malachi rode at one side of little Margot and The Desmond himself at the other. The old horse knew quite well who was on his back and in some remarkable measure got back some of his lost youth, and noble were the exercises which the three riders took over hills and dales, across country, over different stiles and various impediments, and each day The Desmond felt younger and laughed and talked more cheerily. The pushkeen had not only brought him back joy, but she had brought him back his lost youth. Ah, but those were happy days and neither child nor old man thought of the inevitable return to Arles which was coming nearer, like a black cloud, day by day.