Her sombre violence constrained him: she seemed the embodied instrument of fate. He pulled the sled out, blinking like a night-bird as he passed from the shade of the spruces into the transparent dusk of the open. The slope below them was deserted. All Starkfield was at supper, and not a figure crossed the open space before the church. The sky, swollen with the clouds that announce a thaw, hung as low as before a summer storm. He strained his eyes through the dimness, and they seemed less keen, less capable than usual.
He took his seat on the sled and Mattie instantly placed herself in front of him. Her hat had fallen into the snow and his lips were in her hair. He stretched out his legs, drove his heels into the road to keep the sled from slipping forward, and bent her head back between his hands. Then suddenly he sprang up again.
“Get up,” he ordered her.
It was the tone she always heeded, but she cowered down in her seat, repeating vehemently: “No, no, no!”
“Get up!”
“Why?”
“I want to sit in front.”
“No, no! How can you steer in front?”
“I don’t have to. We’ll follow the track.”
They spoke in smothered whispers, as though the night were listening.