Pickwick Abroad: or, The Tour in France — page 184: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Pickwick Abroad. 141 their great leader “to remain quiet, and he would soon resume his functions on the dickey.” Having thus tranquillized his friends, Mr. Pickwick commenced a vigorous and hearty chase after his hat, which appeared very much inclined to return to St. Cloud as speedily as possible. While Mr. Pickwick was thus engaged, the horses, being naturally averse to stand idle in the cold and sleet, set off at a tolerably decent trot ; and as Messieurs Tupman and Winkle never imagined for a moment that the box was not once more occupied by the volun- teer-driver, they remained perfectly calm and easy in their respective places, discussing those topics which usually interest great men—such as the rain, the hail, the snow, and the state of the roads. In the meantime, the unfortunate cause of all this unpleasant dilemma—or, in other words, the refractory hat—conducted its owner to the very verge of a tolerably muddy ditch, into the recesses of which that gentleman felt no mclination to descend after his lost property. He therefore relinquished all hope of recovering the beaver tegument ; and, without yielding himself up to grief and despair, enveloped. his head in his silk pocket-handkerchief, and turned to retrace his steps towards the vehicle he had abandoned a quarter of an hour before. But the hail-storm pelted pitilessly upon him; and, to add to his difficulties, he missed t the direct road and turned into a bye-one, the mazes of which soon involved him in the intricacies of the wood. It was now, for the first time, that Mr. Pickwick began to be seri- ously alarmed at his predicament; and the idea of being laid up in bed with a dangerous cold, was not the least unpleasant reflection that harassed his imagination. What, then, was the extent of his joy and rise when a dingy object, hanging to the branch of a tree at a hte distance, and bearing a strong resemblance to a large wig, met eyes ‘¢ Impossible!” thought Mr. Pickwick within himself: ‘‘ a wig in the middle of Boulogne wood ! ridiculous ;”—and he was about to hasten by, when a closer i tion established the identity his mind had ready imagined. ‘‘ Well—after all, it is a wig!” cried Mr. Pickwick aloud, as he took it. from the tree and turned it over and over in hishands. ‘And a very excellent wig it is too! Extraordinary—but the inside is as dry as a bone ;’”’—and without any further hesitation, Mr. Pickwick divested his head of the silk pocket-handkerchief, and substituted the aforesaid article in its place. The wig was not a very handsome one ; but it was very useful and very warm. It was made of tow, and the back part of it fell in ample and graceful folds over Mr. Pickwick’s coat-collar and shoulders, thus giving to his appearance a certain theatrical air, essentially at variance with his wonted grave and dignified deportment. Indeed, he has since declared that it struck him at the time that the wig must have been accidentally left in that identical spot by some strolling player or juggler. Time, however, convinced him of the incorrectness of this surmise. Protected in so unlooked-for and providential a manner against the violence of the hail-storm, and wearing the capacious brown wig as if he had been made for it, and it for him—Mr. Pickwick pushed manfully onwards, at one moment marvelling whither he was going, and at another humming “‘ God save the King” to the tune of the Old COL q) DGe SS (c@