Colonel Oldbuck, the eldest of the party, was a man of about the middle size, with a neck much too large and long for his body, and which seemed to have bulged out a little at the top in order to form a head. He had a narrow rounded forehead, thick features, and a bilious complexion. His voice was very agreeable, and like his walk, slow and measured. Even when in a passion, and he was a very choleric individual, he never lost this advantage, and would bespatter his adversary with all the unsavoury epithets at his call without rising for a moment above the imposing barrytone of his ordinary conversation. The same peculiarity was discovered in the self-sufficiency that was his most notable characteristic. His conceit was none of your vulgar blustering sort, clamorously betraying its own weakness, but, on the contrary, it was exceedingly quiet and genteel, and if it is not a contradiction, modest and unassuming. It was undoubtedly this very thing that made it so effective. It came upon you before you were aware—it aroused no opposition—excited no suspicion. A nearer acquaintance discovered that in spite of this seeming moderation, it was really most grasping and comprehensive. Nothing was too high for it, or too low—it pervaded his whole being, and seemed to envelope him, wherever he went, like a cloud.
At home he had been a man of very extensive influence, and the scene that was enacted at his departure somewhat resembled the parting of Washington and his army. The tears which were shed on that occasion, as a distinguished orator observed, after falling and watering the earth, ascended magnanimously and triumphantly into the firmament, when they marshalled themselves into a cloud that should accompany their hero in all his wanderings.
Though only a farmer and country trader, the redoubtable Oldbuck had, by sheer force of genius, attained the office of Justice of the Peace—Colonel in the state militia, and others equally responsible. No one could read the Declaration of Independence so touchingly as he, or was so popular an orator at cattle shows and country fairs. His fellow-citizens were even now impatiently awaiting his return that they might hear from his lips how much to believe of that mighty humbug that was now convulsing the whole world. He had distinguished himself no less in his military capacity. We listened to his simple, unpretending narrative of his heroic exploits with thrilling interest, and each in his heart wished that heaven had made him such a man, when we saw in fancy, the keen edge of his ruthless sword describing a horrid circle in the air, and then, at one tremendous blow, cutting in twain the unhappy watermelon, if it should not rather be considered happy in so glorious a death—held meanwhile between the hands of one of his compeers. This performance was a happy union of the achievements of both Richard and Saladin, demanding for its successful execution, the ponderous strength of the one, and marvellous sleight of hand of the other; and it carried me back to the chivalrous times of those glorious old Knickerbockers, who erewhile waged such doubtful war with those pestilent pumpkins.
The same noble ambition that had carried our hero to such heights of fame at home still burned in his heart, inciting him to gain fresh laurels in this new field of action. During his stay at Mormon Island an election was held for alcalde, and by the advice, or, as he would say, the urgent entreaty of many of his friends, the Colonel proposed himself as a candidate. But though he arrayed himself for the occasion in an imposing suit, consisting of a blue jacket that came half-way up to his shoulders, and a pair of tight trowsers that came half-way up to his knees, and in this guise walked up and down before the crowd of admiring fellow-citizens assembled at the polls, he, for some reason I could never fathom, failed to produce his wonted impression; and the office, to his infinite mortification, was given to another.
In addition to his other good qualities, Colonel Oldbuck was an excellent mimic—told a good story, with broad Dutch humour—and was in fact a very entertaining companion. He occupied the post of honour at our little table.
Crowded up into one corner of the tent—his corner—sat a shy, quiet Scotchman, who read incessantly, except when working and sleeping, and lived in a perpetual atmosphere of snuff.
The third, and much the youngest of the party, was a little doctor, who signed his name with a vanity to be pardoned in no one else, C. Fox Browne. As doctors were plenty in California, and we ourselves became acquainted with no less than four bearing this ancient and honourable cognomen, some such distinction seemed necessary. But among his friends our doctor needed no such meretricious addition; his plain Charles Browne was better than the tandem titles of the most name-tormenting pedigree.
Any one, on slight acquaintance, might have been inclined to charge him with vanity. But if so, vanity with him was elevated and ennobled into a virtue. No one could possibly object to it, or wish it had been less. One might as well wish that he had been less disinterested or good-natured. But what these careless observers would call vanity was really a very different quality. It was simply a disposition to be easily pleased, and to look on the bright side of our cloddish humanity. Vanity begins and ends at home; it is essentially egotistical, and must finally refer everything to self. It comes from the company of its own swollen imaginations, like Gulliver from among the Brobdingnags, and in the same way looks on common men as dwarfs. But our doctor's complacency was of the most catholic nature. It made no invidious comparisons; if he thought highly of himself, he had even a better opinion of others, and his eyes were as blind to their faults and open to their virtues as to his own.
Oldbuck, who could never bear the least approach to a jest at his own expense, was continually making game of his companion. "Browne—he did this or that," was his favourite exordium on such occasions; and his eye would begin to twinkle, and his mouth to twitch, as premonitory symptoms of the low, hearty chuckle that was sure to follow, while the doctor seemed to enjoy the whole thing as much as any of us.
These three were now the solitary remnant of a party that had originally consisted of forty members. Half only, however, came to California, to encounter the perils and hardships of the mines; while the others paid all the expenses of the expedition, and sat secure at home. They had brought with them various improved and scientific machines, and among them one for dredging in the bottom of the rivers, of which they seemed to have formed the same idea as myself. Assuming as a basis the accounts that had reached home of the wealth of California, they had sat down, coolly and deliberately, with pen and paper, to calculate the profits they might safely expect from two years' labour. The result at which they arrived was every way pleasing and satisfactory; indeed, so much so that even their inflated imaginations were unable to receive it in all its vast proportions. They accordingly went over the work again with an excess of caution deserving the highest credit, and finding all correct, gradually settled down into the comfortable belief that at the end of two years they would each be worth just half a million.