Inexpressible was the astonishment of the little party when they returned, to find that Mr.Pickwick had disappeared, and taken the wheelbarrow with him.It was the most mysterious and unaccountable thing that was ever heard of.For a lame man to have got upon his legs without any previous notice, and walked off, would have been most extraordinary; but when it came to his wheeling a heavy barrow before him, by way of amusement, it grew positively miraculous.They searched every nook and corner round, together and separately;they shouted, whistled, laughed, called--and all with the same result.
Mr.Pickwick was not to be found.After some hours of fruitless search, they arrived at the unwelcome conclusion that they must go home without him.
Meanwhile Mr.Pickwick had been wheeled to the Pound, and safely deposited therein, fast asleep in the wheelbarrow, to the immeasurable delight and satisfaction, not only of all the boys in the village, but three-fourths of the whole population, who had gathered round, in expectation of his waking.If their most intense gratification had been excited by seeing him wheeled in, how many hundredfold was their joy increased when, after a few indistinct cries of "Sam!" he sat up in the barrow, and gazed with indescribable astonishment on the faces before him.
A general shout was of course the signal of his having woke up; and his involuntary inquiry of "What's the matter?" occasioned another, louder than the first, if possible.
"Here's a game!" roared the populace.
"Where am I?" exclaimed Mr.Pickwick.
"In the Pound," replied the mob.
"How came I here? What was I doing? Where was I brought from?""Boldwig! Captain Boldwig!" was the only reply.
"Let me out," cried Mr.Pickwick."Where's my servant? Where are my friends?""You an't got no friends.Hurrah!" Then there came a turnip, then a poato, and then an egg: with a few other little tokens of the playful disposition of the many-headed.
How long this scene might have lasted, or how much Mr.Pickwick might have suffered, no one can tell, had not a carriage, which was driving swiftly by, suddenly pulled up, from whence there descended old Wardle and Sam Weller, the former of whom, in far less time than it takes to write it, if not to read it, had made his way to Mr.Pickwick's side, and placed him in the vehicle, just as the latter had concluded the third and last round of a single combat with the town-beadle.
"Run to the Justice's!" cried a dozen voices.
"Ah, run avay," said Mr.Weller, jumping up on the box."Give my compliments--Mr.
Veller's compliments--to the Justice, and tell him I've spiled his beadle, and that, if he'll svear in a new 'un, I'll come back agin to-morrow and spile him.Drive on, old feller.""I'll give directions for the commencement of an action for false imprisonment against this Captain Boldwig, directly I get to London," said Mr.Pickwick, as soon as the carriage turned out of the town.
"We were trespassing, it seems," said Wardle.
"I don't care," said Mr.Pickwick, "I'll bring the action.""No, you won't," said Wardle.
"I will, by--" but as there was a humorous expression in Wardle's face, Mr.Pickwick checked himself, and said: "Why not?""Because," said old Wardle, half-bursting with laughter, "because they might turn round on some of us, and say we had taken too much cold punch."Do what he would, a smile would come into Mr.Pickwick's face; the smile extended into a laugh; the laugh into a roar; the roar became general.
So, to keep up their good humour, they stopped at the first roadside tavern they came to, and ordered a glass of brandy and water all round, with a magnum of extra strength for Mr.Samuel Weller.
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