Grubstake

“ It is I who take the risk, not Miss Guile. I regret to say, sir, that if there is to be any falling in love, I am the one who is most likely to fall, and to fall hard. You assume that Miss Guile is heart-whole and fancy free. 'Gad, I wish that I could be sure of it!" He spoke with such fervour that the Count was indeed dismayed.
"Robin, my lad, I beg of you to consider the consequences that—"
"There's no use discussing it, old friend. Trust to luck. There is a bully good chance that she will send me about my business when the time comes and then the salvation of Graustark will be assured." ”

“ Grumblegizzard thought so too, and he alone ate all that was ready for the master and mistress and for the servants, and after all he was not half full.
"That was a man and a half to work, but a fearful fellow to eat, too; there was no stopping him," said the goodman. "Such a labourer would eat a poor farmer out of house and home before one could turn round."
So he told him he had no more work for him. He had best be off to the king's grange.
Then Grumblegizzard strode on to the king, and got a place at once. In the king's grange there was enough both of work and food. ”

“ He died here in this cabin and this poor thing upon the floor is all that is mortal of him."
"Then this must have been Lady Greystoke," said Jane reverently, indicating the poor mass of bones upon the bed.
"The beautiful Lady Alice," replied Clayton, "of whose many virtues and remarkable personal charms I often have heard my mother and father speak. Poor woman," he murmured sadly.
With deep reverence and solemnity the bodies of the late Lord and Lady Greystoke were buried beside their little African cabin, and between them was placed the tiny skeleton of the baby of Kala, the ape. ”

“ I rose, but ere I could get to him young Masters had fallen on him.
"Defend yourself, damn ye!" he said, "you that insult a gentleman that is my friend. Put up your blade, curse you," and he made at him with incredible energy.
Uttering a curse, Grubbe thrust with his point and took the first onrush, swerving it aside; and ere I could intervene they were at it. My young friend was impetuous, and, as I saw at once, none too skilful, and Grubbe kept his temper, as he always did. ”

“ Giglio came up the steps with his horrible bride on his arm, looking as pale as if he was going to execution. He only frowned at the Fairy Blackstick—he was angry with her, and thought she came to insult his misery.
‘Get out of the way, pray,’ says Gruffanuff haughtily. ‘I wonder why you are always poking your nose into other people’s affairs?’
‘Are you determined to make this poor young man unhappy?’ says Blackstick.
‘To marry him, yes! What business is it of yours? Pray, madam, don’t say “you” to a Queen,’ cries Gruffanuff. ”

“ Fatty Coon told him to cheer up.
"I've another idea for you," he said.
"Keep it! Keep it!" Grumpy Weasel hissed. "Your last idea only made me tired; and I haven't a capture to my credit to-night."
"That's because you ran too fast," Fatty explained glibly. "Now, if you'll be careful to run slowly, and do just as I tell you, I can promise that there'll be a capture, without fail."
Grumpy Weasel Visits the Corncrib. (Page 70)
Grumpy had had such bad luck in his hunting about the farmyard that he decided to listen, anyhow. ”

“ And far away in a matted equatorial jungle another Lord Greystoke, the real Lord Greystoke, hunted. By the standards which he knew, he, too, was vogue—utterly vogue, as was the primal ancestor before the first eviction. The day being sultry, the leopard skin had been left behind. The real Lord Greystoke had not two guns, to be sure, nor even one, neither did he have a smart loader; but he possessed something infinitely more efficacious than guns, or loaders, or even twenty-three beaters in white smocks—he possessed an appetite, an uncanny woodcraft, and muscles that were as steel springs. ”

“ Now Grumblegizzard wanted to take the king with him to try the bridge, but he had no mind to do that. So he got up himself on a horse, and threw the fat milkmaid from the king's grange upon the pommel before him—she looked for all the world like a big fir-stump—and then he rode over till the bridge thundered under him.
"Where is the Sound due? Where have you put the soul?" screamed Old Nick. ”

“ But will you play a game to-day?'
'I will,' replied the Gruagach, and they played, and sometimes it seemed as if one would win, and sometimes the other, but in the end the king was the winner.
'What is the prize that you will choose?' asked the Gruagach.
'The shaggy young horse with the stick saddle,' answered the king, but he noticed that the Gruagach held his peace, and his brow was dark as he led out the horse from the stable. Rough was its mane and dull was its skin, but the king cared nothing for that, and throwing his leg over the stick saddle, rode away like the wind. ”

“ He did great harm, for the grain and chaff and beard flew about together, and a cloud arose over the whole grange.
When he was nearly done thrashing, enemies came into the land, and there was to be war. So the king told him to take folk with him and go on the way to meet the foe and fight them, for he thought they would put him to death. "No! he would have no folk with him to be slain; he would fight alone, that he would," said Grumblegizzard.
"All the better; I shall be sooner rid of him," said the king.
But he must have a mighty club. ”

“ Grubb’s perplexities. It does not and cannot always happen, in a world like this, that vice is assisted to shirk, and virtue aideth to do, its duty; but any man as marvellously afflicted as Mr. Grubb is likely to receive not only spiritual consolation, but miraculous aid of some sort. The spectacle of the worthy creature as he gave the reluctant twins their occasional bath, and fed them on food regularly prescribed by Mrs. Grubb, and almost as regularly rejected by them, would have melted the stoniest heart. And who was the angel of deliverance? ”

“ Lady Greystoke suffered far greater anguish than any other of the castaways, for the blow to her hopes and her already cruelly lacerated mother heart lay not in her own privations but in the knowledge that she might now never be able to learn the fate of her firstborn or do aught to discover his whereabouts, or ameliorate his condition—a condition which imagination naturally pictured in the most frightful forms. ”

“ And I suppose 'twas not Timothy as came wheedling of me with his rat's eyes, and clapping me on the back for a lord, and thrusting forth his tongue at the sight of guineas that a man of heart might take in a night an' he used his weapons briskly. Bah!" says Old Irons, "I trust no thief-catcher, nor no go-between, not till I pull my locks at the topsman." And this was true enough about Timothy Grubbe, as every man of us knew very well. There was many as owed the Jug and the Tree to that mealy-mouthed scoundrel, with his red eyes and his complacent grin. ”

“ But the Troll was not to be seen under bare sky, and the hill was fast shut, so that even Grumblegizzard was not man enough to get in.
So he joined fellowship with some quarrymen, who were living at a hill farm, and who lay up there quarrying stone in those hills. Such help they never yet had, for he beat and battered the fell till the rocks were rent, and great stones were rolled down as big as houses; but when he was to rest at noon, and take out one load of food, the whole scrip was clean eaten out.
"I'm a pretty good trencherman myself," said Grumblegizzard ”

“ But he had disappeared as if the ground had swallowed him.
“Well, it's a fair Versailles,” observed Anguish, as they walked down the street, glancing back at the frowning wall.
“It all goes to make me wonder why in the name of heaven we have never heard of this land of Graustark,” said Lorry, still thinking of the castle's grandeur.
“My boy, there are lots of things we don't know. We're too busy. Don't you remember that but one-half the world knows how the other half lives? I'll wager there are not twenty-five people in the United States who know there is such a country as Graustark.” ”

“ The Gruagach and his eleven artful sons are chasing the fisherman's son through water and air, and various forms of fish and bird are assumed, until at length the fisherman's son, in the shape of a swallow, hovers over the summerhouse where the daughter of the king of Erin is sitting. Weary with the chase, the swallow becomes a ring, and falls into the girl's lap; it takes her fancy, and she puts it on her finger. Then the twelve pursuers change from hawks into handsome men, and entertain the king in his castle with music and games, until he asks them what in the world he can give them. ”

“ Then the master of the house said: "I am the Gruagach Gaire; now that you are my man and have eaten your supper, you'll have a bed of silk to sleep on."
Next morning after breakfast the Gruagach said to the Shee an Gannon: "Go out now and loosen my five golden cows and my bull without horns, and drive them to pasture; but when you have them out on the grass, be careful you don't let them go near the land of the giant."
The new cowboy drove the cattle to pasture, and when near the land of the giant, he saw it was covered with woods and surrounded by a high wall. ”

“ At four o'clock, as the sun reached up with his long, red fingers from behind the Monastery mountain, Truxton King and Hobbs rode away from Rabot's cottage high in the hills, refreshed and sound of heart. Rabot's son rode with them, a sturdy, loyal lad, who had leaped joyously at the chance to serve his Prince. Undisturbed, they rode straight for the passes below St. Valentine's. Behind and below them lay the sleeping, restless, unhappy city of Edelweiss, with closed gates and unfriendly, sullen walls. There reigned the darkest fiend that Graustark, in all her history, had ever come to know. ”

“ Ten minutes later every member of the Committee of Ten, except Peter Brutus, was behind lock and bar, together with their shivering associates, all of them dumbly muttering to themselves the awful sentence that Marlanx had passed upon them.
"You are to die at sunset. Graustark still knows how to punish assassins. She will make an example of you to-day that all creatures of your kind, the world over, will not be likely to forget in a century to come. There is no room in Graustark for anarchy. ”

“ In point of area, Graustark is but a mite in the great galaxy of nations. Glancing over the map of the world, one is almost sure to miss the infinitesimal patch of green that marks its location. One could not be blamed if he regarded the spot as a typographical or topographical illusion. Yet the people of this quaint little land hold in their hearts a love and a confidence that is not surpassed by any of the lordly monarchs who measure their patriotism by miles and millions. The Graustarkians are a sturdy, courageous race. ”

“ Could they have seen her in the privacy of her chamber on those dreary, maddening nights they would not have known their sovereign.
Heavy-hearted and with bowed heads the people of Graustark saw the nineteenth fade in the night, the breaking of which would bring the crush of pride, the end of power. At court there was the silent dread and the dying hope that relief might come at the last hour. Men, with pale faces and tearful eyes, wandered through the ancient castle, speechless, nerveless, miserable. Brave soldiers crept about, shorn of pride and filled with woe. ”

“ The old man nodded.
"Dangloss suspects more than one of us" ventured Brutus, his gaze travelling toward Olga. There was lewd admiration in that steady glance. "But we'll fool the old fox. The time will soon be here for the blow that frees Graustark from the yoke. She will be the pioneer among our estates, we the first of the individuals in equality; here the home seat of perfect rulership. There is nothing that can stop us. Have we not the most powerful of friends? Who is greater and shrewder than Count Marlanx? ”

“ Just as they were hard at it the fire went out, so that they could not tell one card from another.
"Now we must chop wood," said Grumblegizzard, and with that he drove his axe into the fir-stump, and thrust the wedge in; but the gnarled root was tough, and would not split at once, however much he twisted and turned his axe.
"They say you are very strong," he said to Old Nick ”

“ My husband is a Graustarkian, even as I am, but there is this distinction between us: he despises Graustark, while I love her in every drop of my blood. I know that in his heart he has never ceased to brew evil for the throne that disgraced him. He openly expresses his hatred for the present dynasty, and has more than once said in public gatherings that he could cheerfully assist in its utter destruction. That, of course, is commonly known in Graustark, where he is scorned and derided. But he is not a man to serve his hatred with mere idle words and inaction. ”

“ He crosses great rivers and wide plains; he winds through fertile valleys and over barren plateaus; he twists and turns and climbs among sombre gorges and rugged mountains; he touches the cold clouds in one day and the placid warmth of the valley in the next. One does not go to Graustark for a pleasure jaunt. It is too far from the rest of the world and the ways are often dangerous because of the strife among the tribes of the intervening mountains. If one hungers for excitement and peril he finds it in the journey from the north or the south into the land of the Graustarkians. ”