Uncle Bernac by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — Read

When a man has reached his mature age he can rest at that point of / vantage, and cast his eyes back at the long road along which he has / travelled, lying with its gleams of sunshine and its stretches of shadow / in the valley behind him. He knows then its whence and its whither, and / the twists and bends which were so full of promise or of menace as he / approached them lie exposed and open to his gaze. So plain is it all / that he can scarce remember how dark it may have seemed to him, or how / long he once hesitated at the cross roads. Thus when he tries to recall / each stage of the journey he does so with the knowledge of its end, and / can no longer make it clear, even to himself, how it may have seemed to / him at the time. And yet, in spite of the strain of years, and the many / passages which have befallen me since, there is no time of my life which / comes back so very clearly as that gusty evening, and to this day I / cannot feel the briny wholesome whiff of the seaweed without being / carried back, with that intimate feeling of reality which only the sense / of smell can confer, to the wet shingle of the French beach.

When I had risen from my knees, the first thing that I did was to put my / purse into the inner pocket of my coat. I had taken it out in order to / give a gold piece to the sailor who had handed me ashore, though I have / little doubt that the fellow was both wealthier and of more assured / prospects than myself. I had actually drawn out a silver half-crown, / but I could not bring myself to offer it to him, and so ended by giving / a tenth part of my whole fortune to a stranger. The other nine / sovereigns I put very carefully away, and then, sitting down upon a flat / rock just above high water mark, I turned it all over in my mind and / weighed what I should do. Already I was cold and hungry, with the wind / lashing my face and the spray smarting in my eyes, but at least I was no / longer living upon the charity of the enemies of my country, and the / thought set my heart dancing within me. But the castle, as well as I / could remember, was a good ten miles off. To go there now was to arrive / at an unseemly hour, unkempt and weather-stained, before this uncle whom / I had never seen. My sensitive pride conjured up a picture of the / scornful faces of his servants as they looked out upon this bedraggled / wanderer from England slinking back to the castle which should have been / his own. No, I must seek shelter for the night, and then at my leisure, / with as fair a show of appearances as possible, I must present myself / before my relative. Where then could I find a refuge from the storm?