“Yes, only a poor boy, God bless him,” said Tom, and the tears stood in his eyes. “I was acquainted with one of our corporals, and often used to go to his lodgings—there was no barracks then—at Ipswich. I often saw a poor, very pale, but pretty lad sitting in the court-yard in a light hand-carriage. He sat there because his mother was a laundry woman, and could only take him out when she went with light lots of clean linen to different houses. To amuse himself he used to play on a lark-whistle and a little tin pipe. They were these very ones,” said Tom, and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “I was quite astonished at the music he could draw out of such simple things, and delighted to listen to him, and he was delighted to have me to listen. Poor Freddy! if he had had his health, he would have been a great musician. Oh! he had such an ear! nothing caught it, but he could imitate it. He picked up tunes, as chickens pick up barley-corns, without thinking. And then he was so fond of reading. He had always some books lying by him in his waggon—and he took such a longing, oh! such a longing, to be out in the fields, to feel the fresh wind on his poor thin cheek, and to see the brooks running in the sunshine amongst the flags and flowers, and to hear the birds. It made my heart to ache. I knew he had not long to live; he was lamed by an accident, and the hurt had taken bad ways. The doctors said his days were numbered. “What a shame! I thought, that the poor lad should so long for the fields, and the winds, and the look of the sky, and the songs and ways of birds, and had but a little time to enjoy ’em, and nobody to take him out. So I determined to take him, and I used to go and draw him into the meadows, and through the woods, whenever I could. And when my captain was away for some months, I devoted all my time to take poor Freddy out. Oh! it would have done you good to see what a joy it was to him. How he would lie and listen by the side of a wood, and then imitate all sorts of birds, and he would never be satisfied till he had taught me to do the same. But I was but a poor scholar. It is since he is gone that the power has come to me—by thinking of him, I reckon. I don’t know how else. “Poor Freddy! he used sometimes to cut me to the quick, by taking my hand and saying, ‘Do you think, Tom, heaven is more beautiful than this? I don’t think it can. And do you think we shall feel such cool, sweet winds, and hear the birds, I wonder?’ “‘No doubt,’ said I, ‘no doubt; they have everything better and finer than we have: but, my dear Fred, you are not gone yet. I hope we shall have many a pleasant time together yet.’