Then he knew, without having been told, that he should never enter them any more. He stood gazing at the castle; but it was still—no more fairy music sounded.
How beautiful it looked in the evening sunshine, and how Jack cried!
Suddenly he perceived that reeds were growing up between him and the great doors: the grass, which had all day grown about the steps, was getting taller; it had long spear-like leaves, it pushed up long pipes of green stem, and they whistled.
They were up to his ankles, they were presently up to his waist; soon they were as high as his head. He drew back that he might see over them; they sprang up faster as he retired, and again he went back. It seemed to him that the castle also receded; there was a long reach of these great reeds between it and him, and now they were growing behind also, and on all sides of him. He kept moving back and back: it was of no use, they sprang up and grew yet more tall, till very shortly the last glimpse of the fairy castle was hidden from his sorrowful eyes.
The sun was just touching the tops of the purple mountains when Jack lost sight of Mopsa’s home; but he remembered how he had penetrated the bed of reeds in the morning, and he hoped to have the same good fortune again. So on and on he walked, pressing his way among them as well as he could, till the sun went down behind the mountains, and the rosy sky turned gold colour, and the gold began to burn itself away, and then all on a sudden he came to the edge of the reed-bed, and walked out upon a rising ground.
Jack ran up it, looking for the castle. He could not see it, so he climbed a far higher hill; still he could not see it. At last, after a toilsome ascent to the very top of the green mountain, he saw the castle lying so far, so very far off, that its peaks and its battlements were on the edge of the horizon, and the evening mist rose while he was gazing, so that all its outlines were lost, and very soon they seemed to mingle with the shapes of the hill and the forest, till they had utterly vanished away.
Then he threw himself down on the short grass. The words of the white fairy sounded in his ears, “Her name was Jenny;” and he burst into tears again, and decided to go home.
He looked up into the rosy sky, and held out his arms, and called, “Jenny! O Jenny! come.”
In a minute or two he saw a little black mark overhead, a small speck, and it grew larger, and larger, and larger still, as it fell headlong down like a stone. In another instant he saw a red light and a green light, then he heard the winnowing noise of the bird’s great wings, and she alighted at his feet, and said, “Here I am.”
“I wish to go home,” said Jack, hanging down his head and speaking in a low voice, for his heart was heavy because of his failure.