Oh dear no ! Do n'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 -LRB- Sir John at least -RRB- 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 -LRB- for it was somewhat her fault -RRB- , 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 . 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 , where the old dalesmen all sleep side by side between the lime-stone crags . And the dame decked it with garlands every Sunday , till she grew so old that she could not stir abroad ; then the little children decked it , for her . And always she sang an old old song , as she sat spinning what she called her wedding-dress . The children could not understand it , but they liked it none the less for that ; for it was very sweet , and very sad ; and that was enough for them . And these are the words of it : - When all the world is young , lad , And all the trees are green ; And every goose a swan , lad , And every lass a queen ; Then hey for boot and horse , lad , And round the world away ; Young blood must have its course , lad , And every dog his day . When all the world is old , lad , And all the trees are brown ; And all the sport is stale , lad , And all the wheels run down ; Creep home , and take your place there , The spent and maimed among : God grant you find one face there , You loved when all was young .
Those are the words : but they are only the body of it : the soul XXXXX the song was the dear old woman 's sweet face , and sweet voice , and the sweet old air to which she sang ; and that , alas !
So among at if into of over than that with