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The poor people, afraid,
His orders obeyed.—
The Marquis himself became rather dismayed,
* This expletive, used to express utter loathing,
I scarcely can spell—
One really can’t tell
How to put sounds in etymological clothing.
Thinking what was to end all these funny proceedings
Into which he was following Pussy’s queer leadings;
But he felt he was sinned against rather than sinning
For Pussy strange fun
With the clothes had begun,
But what would the close be of such a beginning?
Still on Pussy speeds
By pastures and meads,
And the coachman still follows wherever he leads.
“Your estates are enormous—
Pray, Marquis, inform us,
If I may inquire,
Did they come from your sire?
He must really have been a most terrible lord,
Acquiring so much by the right of the sword.
I’m pleased to perceive,
With such riches to leave,
He’d a son of such merit
The wealth to inherit
Of so mighty a conqueror and enemy-killer.”
“Yes,” said the youth,
“To tell you the truth,
My late father had quite a renown as a miller.”
The Princess smiled sweetly,
As if to hint neatly,’
Though she counted the father
A conqueror rather,
She fancied the son
Had a victory won—
In fact, she was sure—as the smile would infer—
About one of his conquests, and that was of her!
For she felt he was lord of her bosom completely.
And now the fields and meads they leave;
To right and left huge mountains rise,
And seem—so much their heights deceive—
With lofty crests to touch the skies.
Pine forests clothe their sombre sides,
Where dark ravines and gorges frown,
And many a mountain torrent glides,
Or bounds from ledge to ledge adown.
Their mighty wings the eagles flap
High up among the summits lone,
Whose peaks the snows eternal cap,
Or where the glacier billows groan.
But in the plain about the base
Of this portentous mountain chain,
The signs of human toil they trace,
And find men labouring again.
Here, turned by some wild torrent’s force,
Huge wheels revolve with busy hum;
There some vast chasm stops their course,
Whose depths the eye would vainly plumb;
Or, laden deep on shrieking wheels,
Toil waggons up the steep inclines:
Their load the mystery reveals,—
This region is a place of mines!
As soon as Puss got to this desolate spot,
Addressing the miners, he kept up the plot.
“See your master approach
In the King’s grand state-coach;
He has sent me before him, his orders to broach.
“‘Then haste to your stations
And make him the lowest of low salutations’”
If you don’t wish the gnomes and the kobolds to seize you,
When asked whom you obey,
Be certain to say,
‘The Marquis of Carabas, sire, an it please you!’
When His Majesty’s Grace
Appears on the place,
You must bow till each one touches earth with his face!”
To every word
That from Pussy they heard
The miners attended—
Low bowed and low bended;
And when the King came,
And asked them the name
Of their master, they answered him all just the same.
And I’d just hint to you
That as thus this whole crew
Of miners obeyed—minors always should do.
But now having passed through this wild tract at last,
They came to a plain greenly wooded and vast,
And spied out, half hid
A thick forest amid,
A castle that stood on the crest of a hill,
Or the brow of a rock—you may choose which you will;
For the hill was so steep
The road had to creep
Round and round from the baser
To the gates of the place,
Though Pussy went straight up the side at full chase,
While slowly around
The royal coach wound,
The horses got pretty well tired, I ’ll be bound,
For such roads will e’en puzzle a nag that is sound.
Half-way to the top Puss in Boots made a stop
Not because he was tired and quite ready to drop,
But because he encountered a dame and her goodman
And child—by profession the man was a woodman—
And wished to inquire
Ere he went any higher
If this past all doubt was the castle and dwelling
Of the wizard of whom I have elsewhere been telling.
So, making a bow, he said, “Pray allow
Me to ask you one question that struck me just now—
That castle that rises
To dazzle our eyes is
The abode, I suppose, of a man of position: