You are closed in by it as by
insecure and ever receding walls when you drive in a
snowstorm. If I had met a team, I could not have seen
it, and if my safety had depended on my discerning it in
time to turn out of the road, my safety would not have
been very safe indeed. But I could rely on my horses:
they would hear the bells of any encountering conveyance
long enough ahead to betray it to me by their behaviour.
And should I not even notice that, they would turn out
in time of their own accord: they had a great deal of
road sense.
Weariness overcame me. In the open the howling and
whistling of the wind always acts on me like a soporific.
Inside of a house it is just the reverse; I know nothing
that will keep my nerves as much on edge and prevent me
as certainly from sleeping as the voices at night of a
gale around the buildings. I needed something more definite
to look at than that prospect ahead. The snow was by this
time piling in on the seat at my right and in the box,
so as to exclude all drafts except from below I felt that
as a distinct advantage.
Without any conscious intention I began to peer out below
the slanting edge of the left side-curtain and to watch
the sharp crest-wave of snow-spray thrown by the curve
of the runner where it cut into the freshly accumulating
mass.
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