Graustark

Graustark, by George Barr
McCutcheon

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Title: Graustark
Author: George Barr McCutcheon

Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5142] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 13,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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GRAUSTARK ***

GRAUSTARK

I
MR. GRENFALL LORRY SEEKS ADVENTURE
Mr. Grenfall Lorry boarded the east-bound express at Denver with all
the air of a martyr. He had traveled pretty much all over the world, and
he was not without resources, but the prospect of a twenty-five hundred
mile journey alone filled him with dismay. The country he knew; the
scenery had long since lost its attractions for him; countless newsboys
bad failed to tempt him with the literature they thrust in his face, and as
for his fellow-passengers--well, he preferred to be alone. And so it was
that he gloomily motioned the porter to his boxes and mounted the
steps with weariness.
As it happened, Mr. Grenfall Lorry did not have a dull moment after
the train started.
He stumbled on a figure that leaned toward the window in the dark
passageway. With reluctant civility he apologized; a lady stood up to
let him pass, and for an instant in the half light their eyes met, and that
is why the miles rushed by with incredible speed.

Mr. Lorry had been dawdling away the months in Mexico and
California. For years he had felt, together with many other people, that
a sea-voyage was the essential beginning of every journey; he had
started round the world soon after leaving Cambridge; he had fished
through Norway and hunted in India, and shot everything from grouse
on the Scottish moors to the rapids above Assouan. He had run in and
out of countless towns and countries on the coast of South America; he
had done Russia and the Rhone valley and Brittany and Damascus; he
had seen them all --but not until then did it occur to him that there
might be something of interest nearer home. True he had thought of
joining some Englishmen on a hunting tour in the Rockies, but that had
fallen through. When the idea of Mexico did occur to him he gave
orders to pack his things, purchased interminable green tickets, dined
unusually well at his club, and was off in no time to the unknown West.
There was a theory in his family that it would have been a decenter
thing for him to stop running about and settle down to work. But his
thoughtful father had given him a wealthy mother, and as earning a
living was not a necessity, he failed to see why it was a duty. "Work is
becoming to some men," he once declared, "like whiskers or red ties,
but it does not follow that all men can stand it." After that the family
found him "hopeless," and the argument dropped.
He was just under thirty years, as good-looking as most men, with no
one dependent upon him and an income that had withstood both the
Maison Doree and a dahabeah on the Nile. He never tired of seeing
things and peoples and places. "There's game to be found anywhere,"
he said, "only it's sometimes out of season. If I had my way--and
millions--I should run a newspaper. Then all the excitements would
come to me. As it is--I'm poor, and so I have to go all over the world
after them."
This agreeable theory of life had worked well; he was a little bored at
times--not because he had seen too much, but because there were not
more things left to see. He had managed somehow to keep his
enthusiasms through everything--and they made life worth living. He
felt too a certain elation--like a spirited horse--at turning