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Neither General Kearney nor Mason had much respect for this land of "buncombe," but assumed the true doctrine that California was yet a Mexican province, held by right of conquest, that the military commander was held responsible to the country, and that the province should be held in statu quo until a treaty of peace.
They have followed the porno maniacs in embracing a piece of buncombe, and when the day of deliverance comes it will turn to ashes in their arms. Their error, as I say, lies in overestimating the courage and enterprise of man. They themselves, barring mere physical valour, a quality in which the average man is far exceeded by the average jackal or wolf, have more of both.
"We'll have to watch for our opportunity," he said, "and when it comes we can handle this new movement not by crushing it, but by guiding it. I've come to the conclusion that there is a true instinct in it, that there are certain things we have done which have been mistakes, and which we can't do any more. But as for this theory that all wisdom resides in the people, it's buncombe.
Father Galoshes was the name he went by most, but Case always gave it the French quirk, which was another reason we had for thinking him above the common. "Yes, I have seen him," I says. "I made out he didn't think much of your Captain Randall." "That he don't!" says Case. "It was the trouble about poor Adams. The last day, when he lay dying, there was young Buncombe round. Ever met Buncombe?"
There were dad and Captain Buncombe who was what people call an archaeologist, fond of grubbing up old stones and skeletons, and digging like an old mole amongst ruins continually talking all day long about Marathon and Hymettus, the Parthenon and Chersonese, the Acropolis, and Theseus and Odysseus and all the rest of them, bothering our lives out with questions about Homer and the Iliad, and all such stuff; so, I put it to you candidly, whether it wasn't almost as bad as being back again at school, making a fellow feel small who was shaky in his Greek and had a bad memory for history?
House too big for me. 'Ah! it is rather large. 'I'm thinking of changes. You know something about my affairs. Yes changes Rolfe had never seen the man so dismal before; he tried to inspirit him, but with small result. 'It's the kids that bother me, said Buncombe. Then he dropped his voice, and brought his head nearer. 'You're going to get married. His eyes glinted darkly.
The moment came when Buncombe grew confidential, and he, too, had a matrimonial history to disclose. Poverty played no part in it; his business flourished, and Mrs. Buncombe, throughout a cohabitation of five years, made no complaint of her lot.
This man, in his confidences, asserts broadly that he does not mean to be thrown over, and that man has a project for throwing over somebody else; and the intention of each is that scruples are not to stand in the way of his success. The "Ruat coelum, fiat justitia," was said, no doubt, from an outside balcony to a crowd, and the speaker knew that he was talking buncombe.
"All buncombe, my dear," said Edna decidedly. "That flag talk didn't take the curse off the statement that the war is all wrong." "He had to say something patriotic, or he'd have been mobbed," was Lucile's serious comment. "I hadn't thought of Jake Kasker, before, but he may be the culprit." "Isn't he the only German in town who has denounced our going into the European war?" demanded Edna.
The discourse, hollow, insincere, half-blasphemous, a buncombe bit of advertising as it was, nevertheless contained the germ of an essential truth for which Bob had been searching. He wanted to know how, through what experience, the man had come to this insight. But his attempts at conversation met with a cold reception. Painless Porter was too old a bird ever to lower his guard.
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