“Oh! of lights, brother,—of lights,” replied Caspar.
Karl was deeply attentive,—almost superstitious. He fancied that Caspar had seen the same vision with himself,—it must have been something more than a dream!
“What lights, Caspar?”
“Oh! jolly lights,—lights enough to show us out. Hang me! if I think I dreamt it after all. By thunder! good brother, I believe I was half awake when the idea came into my mind. Capital idea, isn’t it?”
“What idea?” inquired Karl in surprise, and rather apprehensive that Caspar’s dream had deprived him of his senses. “What idea, Caspar?”
“Why, the idea of the candles, to be sure.”
“The candles! What candles?—Surely,” thought Karl, as he asked the question,—“surely my poor brother’s intellect is getting deranged,—this horrid darkness is turning his brain.”
“Oh! I have not told you my dream,—if it was a dream. I am confused. I am so delighted with the idea. We shall group no more in this hideous darkness,—we shall have light,—plenty of light, I promise you. Odd we did not think of the thing before!”
“But what is it, brother? What was your dream about?—Tell us that.”
“Well, now that I am awake, I don’t think it was a dream,—at least, not a regular one. I was thinking of the thing before I fell asleep, and I kept on thinking about it when I got to be half asleep; and then I saw my way clearer. You know, brother, I have before told you that when I have any thing upon my mind that puzzles me, I often hit upon the solution of it when I am about half dreaming; and so it has been in this case, I am sure I have got the right way at last.”