Ambrose Bierce's frontier story of a silent cabin, a night visitor, and the evidence hidden in one final sentence.
Story 39 · Adapted for B2/C1 from Ambrose Bierce's 1891 story
If you know the earlier stories, answer without opening them. If not, choose any two and use your general English knowledge.
36: Could describes general past ability; managed to stresses success in one difficult situation.
32: For example: “I wish she had stayed inside that night.”
25: For example: “…he continued alone into the frozen wilderness.”
18: “It was their sacrifice that made the gifts valuable.”
Use the sentence to infer each bold word before revealing it. Say what clue helped you.
Place the eight words into the three groups below. Some could fit more than one group; defend your choices rather than searching for one perfect answer.
This is an adaptation for B2/C1. Read one movement at a time. After each, close the text with your hand or scroll past it, then answer from memory. The final evidence stays hidden until you make a prediction.
In the early years of the American frontier, a man called Murlock built a rough cabin deep in the forest. The nearest settlement was several miles away. His home stood in a small clearing, surrounded by trees that pressed close on every side.
Years later, hunters sometimes passed the place and found Murlock sitting outside. Although he was only about fifty, he appeared much older. His hair and beard were long and grey, his back was bent, and his eyes seemed to look beyond the people who spoke to him. He answered politely but rarely began a conversation.
The cabin had a door and a single window. The door worked. The window did not. Heavy wooden boards covered it from the outside, and nobody could remember when Murlock had put them there. It made the house look as if it had one blind eye.
When Murlock eventually died, the settlement buried him near the cabin. The building slowly collapsed into the forest. Only the story of the boarded window remained.
Memory check — answer before revealing:
1. Which three details make Murlock appear older than he is?
2. What is physically unusual about the cabin?
1. His long grey hair and beard, bent back, and distant-looking eyes.
2. Its only window has been covered completely with boards.
When he first came to the forest, Murlock was young, strong and hopeful. He did not come alone. His wife shared the hard work of making a life there: planting, cooking, repairing clothes and keeping the cabin alive through winter. The two of them seemed likely to grow old together in that clearing.
Then his wife developed a fever. There was no doctor nearby and no road that could bring help quickly. Murlock did what little he knew, but her breathing became weaker. After several days she lay completely still. He called her name and received no answer. Her skin felt cold. She appeared to have died.
Murlock's grief did not come out as tears. It seemed to empty him. He moved around the cabin mechanically, preparing her body for burial. He washed her face, closed her eyes and placed her on the table. Outside, the forest darkened.
He planned to make a coffin the next morning. Until then, he would keep vigil beside her.
Memory check — separate fact from interpretation:
1. What observations lead Murlock to his conclusion?
2. Which sentence tells us that the conclusion may not be certain?
1. She does not answer, does not move, feels cold and seems not to be breathing.
2. “She appeared to have died.” The verb appeared reports an impression, not a confirmed fact.
Murlock sat beside the table with his rifle close at hand. A candle burned between him and his wife. For hours nothing moved except the flame.
Sometime after midnight, exhaustion overcame him. His head fell forward and he slept.
He woke in complete darkness. The candle had gone out. At first he did not know what had disturbed him. Then he heard a heavy sound near the window — wood under pressure, followed by a low movement inside the room.
Something struck the table. Murlock heard feet scraping across the floor and a weight being dragged towards the window. He called his wife's name, but his own voice sounded unfamiliar.
Unable to see, he raised the rifle and fired towards the noise. The flash lit the cabin for less than a second. In that instant he saw a large animal at the broken window. Then the room was dark again.
A cry followed the shot. It seemed to contain both the voice of an animal and something human. Murlock recoiled against the wall. He remembered nothing more until morning.
Reconstruct the sequence without looking:
Put these in order: the candle goes out · Murlock fires · something drags a weight · Murlock sleeps · a mixed cry is heard.
Order: Murlock sleeps → the candle goes out → something drags a weight → Murlock fires → a mixed cry is heard.
Stop before the final evidence.
What seems to have happened? Give your best explanation, then give a second explanation that fits the same evidence. Use may have, must have and can't have to show different levels of certainty.
Sunlight entered through a new opening where the boards had been torn away. Near the window lay a panther, wounded by the shot. Murlock's wife was no longer on the table. The animal had dragged her across the floor.
Her body now showed injuries from the panther. That explained the movement in the darkness—but not the cry that had sounded partly human.
Then Murlock saw the decisive detail.
His wife's hands were closed tightly. Between her teeth was a piece of the panther's ear.
After the turn:
1. Which earlier details now change meaning?
2. Tell the final discovery in one sentence using turned out to have been.
1. Her stillness, the uncertain diagnosis, the dragging sound, and the cry that seemed partly human.
2. “The woman who had appeared to be dead turned out to have been alive.”
The story depends on the distance between what the evidence suggests and what later becomes known. English handles that distance with seem, appear and turn out.
An impression about a state at the same time.
Murlock seemed to be calm.
An impression now about an earlier event.
She appeared to have died.
The result or truth discovered later.
She turned out to have been alive.
She seemed dead, but she was alive.
The meaning is clear, but the timing and discovery are flattened.
She appeared to have died, but turned out to have been alive.
The perfect infinitives place both states before the later discovery.
Complete each sentence with the correct infinitive form. The items are mixed: decide whether the impression concerns the same time or an earlier event.
1. From a distance, the cabin appeared empty. (be)
2. Someone seemed the window years earlier. (board up)
3. Murlock appeared much older than fifty. (be)
4. The candle seemed while he was asleep. (go out)
5. The cry turned out partly human. (be)
6. His first conclusion turned out wrong. (be)
1. to be 2. to have boarded up 3. to be
4. to have gone out 5. to have been 6. to be
For each pair, combine the first impression and later truth. Use a different structure each time.
A. First impression: The cabin was abandoned. Later truth: Murlock still lived there.
B. First impression: His wife had died from fever. Later truth: She was unconscious.
C. First impression: The sound came only from an animal. Later truth: a person was also fighting.
A. “The cabin seemed to be abandoned, but Murlock turned out to be living there.”
B. “His wife appeared to have died from fever, but she turned out to have been unconscious.”
C. “The sound seemed to have come only from an animal, but a person turned out to have been fighting too.”
Retell the mystery in exactly six sentences. Include all four structures below, but choose the order yourself.
The story is not simply hiding information. It teaches us to interpret each detail one way, then uses the final evidence to make us reinterpret it.
The narrator begins long after the event, with an old man and an unexplained window. This plants a question before the central story begins.
We know only what Murlock can observe. Because he has no medical help, his conclusion feels reasonable but remains uncertain. Bierce limits our evidence.
When the candle goes out, sight disappears. Scraping, dragging and a cry replace it. Bierce narrows the scene to uncertain sounds.
The fragment of the panther's ear is physical proof. One small object recontextualises the woman's stillness, the struggle and the cry.
Which contributes most to the ending: the boarded window, the darkness, the uncertain diagnosis, the mixed cry, or the final physical clue? Rank your top three. For each choice, explain what would be lost if Bierce removed it.
The tragedy comes from isolation and limited knowledge. Murlock mistakes appearance for certainty because no help is available.
The boarded window is a physical act of avoidance. Murlock cannot change the past, so he hides the place where the truth entered.
Defend one interpretation, then strengthen the other one. Use at least two effect verbs and one sentence with appears to or turns out to.
Write 60–90 words explaining how the final detail changes the meaning of one earlier moment. Avoid summarising the whole plot; concentrate on the before-and-after interpretation.
At first, the cry appears to be an animal sound distorted by Murlock's fear. The final clue recontextualises it: the cry turns out to have come from a struggle in which his wife was conscious. Bierce therefore converts a vague Gothic noise into human evidence. What seemed supernatural becomes more terrible because it was physical, preventable and real.
Choose the timer, then fill the time with connected ideas rather than racing. The tasks move from reconstruction to argument to creative transfer.
First telling: retell the story as a mystery, stopping just before the final evidence. Make your listener believe the first explanation.
Second telling: reveal the ending and reinterpret at least three earlier details. Use all four forms: seemed to be, appeared to have…, turned out to be, and turned out to have been.
Give a balanced judgement on this claim: “Murlock was not responsible; he acted reasonably with the knowledge he had.”
Build the strongest case for the claim, then the strongest case against it. Finish with a verdict that distinguishes what seemed reasonable then from what turned out to be true later.
Create a brief mystery—completely invented or borrowed from a film, book or news story—in which the first explanation is persuasive but wrong.
Give four clues. Three should support the first impression; one should quietly point towards the truth. End with a decisive object or sentence that makes everything appear different. After telling it, explain how you planted and recontextualised the evidence.