“But come! that must have been a lively one; let me hear about it.”
Seated under the shadow of the huge boulder, where they knew no danger threatened, the two talked freely, though each took care that their voices did not penetrate far from the spot. Freeman gave the particulars of his dream, and it was plain that despite his rugged nature it had made a deep impression on him.
“Lieutenant, do you suppose there is anything in it?” he asked at the conclusion of the singular story. The young man respected the sorrow of the elder too sincerely to make light of what he said, though he himself felt not the slightest faith in the warnings and visions which it is claimed sometimes come to people in slumber.
“Nothing at all; your feelings have been so wrought up with anxiety that it would be still stranger if you had not dreamed of your boy. How could it be otherwise when there is nothing else in your thoughts?”
“But it was so realistic that it clings by me.”
“As a matter of course; your brain was surcharged and overflowed with the same string of ideas, and did not cease its throbbings when the rest of the body was asleep. They say we never dream of anything which has not previously been in our thoughts, but that is an error, for I know I have had fancies in sleep which had never been in my head during waking hours.”
“I have always held the same views as you, and yet we cannot deny, lieutenant, that there have been many verifications of dreams. To dispute it would be to make out some of the best of men and women to be falsifiers.”
“In their cases, I think, a good deal was due to imagination, but you are not of that build. A physician would explain your ugly dream on the plainest of physiological principles, so literally there’s nothing in it.”
“You know how fond Mendez is of tiswin.”