ds now, nothing but a piece of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes
say, and geese believe, spirits could make it dance, or talk to you by
rapping on it.

Am I in earnest? Oh dear no! Don't you know that this is a fairy tale,
and all fun and pretence; and that you are not to believe one word of
it, even if it is true?

But at all events, so it happened to Tom. And, therefore, the keeper,
and the groom, and Sir John made a great mistake, and were very unhappy
(Sir John at least) without any reason, when they found a black thing in
the water, and said it was Tom's body, and that he had been drowned.
They were utterly mistaken. Tom was quite alive; and cleaner, and
merrier, than he ever had been. The fairies had washed him, you see, in
the swift river, so thoroughly, that not only his dirt, but his whole
husk and shell had been washed quite off him, and the pretty little real
Tom was washed out of the inside of it, and swam away, as a caddis does
when its case of stones and silk is bored through, and away it goes on
its back, paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly away
as a caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with long legs and horns.
They are foolish fellows, the caperers, and fly into the candle at
night, if you leave the door open. We will hope Tom will be wiser, now
he has got safe out of his sooty old shell.

But good Sir John did not understand all this, not being a fellow of the
Linnaean Society; and he took it into his head that Tom was drowned. When
they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and found no jewels
there, nor money--nothing but three marbles, and a brass button with a
string to it--then Sir John did something as like crying as ever he did
in his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he need have done. So
he cried, and the groom-boy cried, and the huntsman cried, and the dame
cried, and the little girl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the old
nurse cried (for it was somewhat her fault), and my lady cried, for
though people have wigs, that is no reason why they should not have
hearts; but the keeper did not cry, though he had been so good-natured
to Tom the morning before; for he was so dried up with running after
poachers, that you could no more get tears out of him than milk out of
leather: and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten pounds, and
he drank it all in a week. Sir John sent, far and wide, to find Tom's
father and mother: but he might have looked till