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 had ever 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 [Footnote: The caddis worm, while it lives in the water, builds for itself a case of stones or grass or shells, all bound together with silk When the time for its transformation is near, the worm seals up with silk both ends of its case, and remains withdrawn until it is ready to emerge as a caddis fly.] 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, 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 Doomsday for them, for one was dead, and the other was in Botany Bay. [Footnote: Botany Bay was originally the name of a settlement established in New South Wales, in Eastern Australia, for the reception of criminals from England. Later, the name came to be applied to any distant colony to which criminals were transported.] And the little girl would not play with her dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor little Tom. And soon my lady put a pretty little tombstone over Tom's shell in the little churchyard in Vendale.