Explore "Uncle Bernac" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was delightful to see the glow and twinkle of the fire and to escape / from the wet wind and the numbing cold, but my curiosity had already / risen so high about this lonely man and his singular dwelling that my / thoughts ran rather upon that than upon my personal comfort. There was / his remarkable appearance, the fact that he should be awaiting company / within that miserable ruin in the heart of the morass at so sinister an / hour, and finally the inexplicable incident of the chimney, all of which / excited my imagination. It was beyond my comprehension why he should at / one moment charge me sternly to continue my journey, and then, in almost / the same breath, invite me most cordially to seek the shelter of his / hut. On all these points I was keenly on the alert for an explanation. / Yet I endeavoured to conceal my feelings, and to assume the air of a man / who finds everything quite natural about him, and who is much too / absorbed in his own personal wants to have a thought to spare upon / anything outside himself.
A glance at the inside of the cottage, as I entered, confirmed me in the / conjecture which the appearance of the outside had already given rise / to, that it was not used for human residence, and that this man was only / here for a rendezvous. Prolonged moisture had peeled the plaster in / flakes from the walls, and had covered the stones with blotches and / rosettes of lichen. The whole place was rotten and scaling like a / leper. The single large room was unfurnished save for a crazy table, / three wooden boxes, which might be used as seats, and a great pile of / decayed fishing-net in the corner. The splinters of a fourth box, with / a hand-axe, which leaned against the wall, showed how the wood for the / fire had been gathered. But it was to the table that my gaze was / chiefly drawn, for there, beside the lamp and the book, lay an open / basket, from which projected the knuckle-end of a ham, the corner of a / loaf of bread, and the black neck of a bottle.