Lord Fleetwood had nothing to say but ‘Gorgon! a girl a Gorgon!’ and it struck Woodseer as intensely unreasonable, considering that he had seen the girl whom, in his effort to portray her, he had likened to a beautiful Gorgon.  He recounted the scene of the meeting with her, pictured it in effective colours, but his companion gave no response, nor a nod.  They ceased to converse, and when the young lord’s hired carriage drew up on the road, Woodseer required persuasion to accompany him.  They were both in their different stations young tyrants of the world, ready to fight the world and one another for not having their immediate view of it such as they wanted it.  They agreed, however, not to sleep in the city.  Beds were to be had near the top of a mountain on the other side of the Salza, their driver informed them, and vowing themselves to that particular height, in a mutual disgust of the city, they waxed friendlier, with a reserve.

Woodseer soon had experience that he was receiving exceptional treatment from Lord Fleetwood, whose manservant was on the steps of the hotel in Salzburg on the lookout for his master.

‘Sir Meeson has been getting impatient, my lord,’ said the man.

Sir Meeson Corby appeared; Lord Fleetwood cut him short:  ’You ’re in a hurry; go at once, don’t wait for me; I join you in Baden.—­Do me the favour to eat with me,’ he turned to Woodseer.  ’And here, Corby! tell the countess I have a friend to bear me company, and there is to be an extra bedroom secured at her hotel.  That swinery of a place she insists on visiting is usually crammed.  With you there,’ he turned to Woodseer, ’I might find it agreeable.—­You can take my man, Corby; I shall not want the fellow.’

‘Positively, my dear Fleetwood, you know,’ Sir Meeson expostulated, ’I am under orders; I don’t see how—­I really can’t go on without you.’

‘Please yourself.  This gentleman is my friend, Mr. Woodseer.’

Sir Meeson Corby was a plump little beau of forty, at war with his fat and accounting his tight blue tail coat and brass buttons a victory.  His tightness made his fatness elastic; he looked wound up for a dance, and could hardly hold on a leg; but the presentation of a creature in a battered hat and soiled garments, carrying a tattered knapsack half slung, lank and with disorderly locks, as the Earl of Fleetwood’s friend —­the friend of the wealthiest nobleman of Great Britain!—­fixed him in a perked attitude of inquiry that exhausted interrogatives.  Woodseer passed him, slouching a bow.  The circular stare of Sir Meeson seemed unable to contract.  He directed it on Lord Fleetwood, and was then reminded that he dealt with prickles.

‘Where have you been?’ he said, blinking to refresh his eyeballs.  ’I missed you, I ran round and round the town after you.’

‘I have been to the lake.’

‘Queer fish there!’ Sir Meeson dropped a glance on the capture.