He heard a horse stamp in the stable, and saw a cat dart across the corn-yard as he went through.
Those were all the signs of life about the place.
It was a cloudy night and still.

Nothing was to be heard but his own footsteps.

The cattle in the fields were all asleep.

The larch and spruce trees on the top of the hill by the foot of which his road wound were still as clouds.

He could just see the sky through their stems.