Scott is attacked by a sparrow in the snow

Scott is attacked by a Sparrow in the snow during a desperate attempt to get back inside the house, and the attack turns a bid for shelter into a forced return to the cellar. The scene makes his vulnerability physical at every scale: snow becomes deep terrain, the storm makes the yard nearly impassable, and a bird can knock him down and drive him through a window. His survival depends on choosing between dangers, not finding a safe route out of them.

The Door and the Choice

The crisis begins when a cat advances on Scott near the back of the house. Beth comes in through the front door, and the draft sweeps across the floor and slams the back door shut, carrying Scott out with it. He lands in a bank of snow. The door that had separated him from the cat now separates him from the house, and his pounding and cries for Beth cannot be heard above the wind.

The yard offers no easy refuge. Scott recognizes that prolonged exposure could freeze him: his feet feel heavy, his fingers ache and tingle, and his body shudders. Yet the cellar windows are locked from inside, the doors are too heavy for him to lift, and shelter beneath the porch would be no warmer. The house remains visible as safety, but its closed doors and windows turn that safety into something unreachable from where he stands.

He considers waiting on the back porch, where Louise Carey might find him, but cannot count on being discovered in time. Instead, he decides to cross the yard to the front porch railing and try to reach the bell. The decision is made under pressure: the snow looks deep enough to swallow him, and the cold threatens to stop him before he arrives. Scott steps down from the porch, slips, and plunges into the snow; after another fall, he continues by lurching forward through drifts that reach high against his diminished body.

The Sparrow’s Attack

At the corner of the house, Scott sees the distant, snow-covered Ford. The car is still too far away to offer immediate shelter, and before he can make progress toward it, a Sparrow strikes him and knocks him down. The bird circles back, hovering close enough for him to smell its wet feathers, and lunges with its beak. Scott throws snow at it, briefly driving it off, but the reprieve lasts only long enough for another charge.

The struggle becomes a repeated pattern of movement and interruption. Scott advances a few feet, hears the beat of the Sparrow’s wings, and drops or turns to throw snow into its eyes. The snow buys him inches, not safety. He is knocked over again, and when he strikes at the bird he feels his hands hit the hard sides of its beak. Each attempt to continue across the yard is answered by another dive, so the route toward shelter becomes a series of short advances punctuated by falls and defense.

During one of these attacks, Scott sees the cellar window with its missing pane. The opening offers a way out of the Sparrow’s reach, but it leads back into the cellar. He reaches the wall and stands with his back to the window, still throwing snow in the hope that the bird will leave him alone. Instead, it keeps attacking. Its beak wounds his head and knocks him against the house; dazed and unable to fend it off, Scott turns and jumps through the opening. The Sparrow’s pursuit thus closes the choice he had been trying to avoid: escape from the bird means re-entering the cellar.

Return to the Cellar and Aftermath

Scott falls through the window and crashes onto the sand below. He tries to stand, but twists his leg in the fall and cannot put weight on it. The return is not a controlled retreat or a successful rescue. The bird has driven him back into the confined space, and his injury leaves him unable to move normally just as the storm and the failed escape have exhausted his options.

About ten minutes later, Scott hears running footsteps above. The back door opens and shuts, and Louise Carey and Beth Carey go around the house and through the yard, trampling the snow and calling for him. They continue searching after darkness falls, but do not find him. Their effort contrasts with Scott’s isolation below: they are close enough to search the yard, yet the broken cellar window and his position beneath it keep him out of sight.

The next chapter carries the consequence into the empty house. Scott hears the water pump and realizes it has been left running; when it clicks off, silence settles over the cellar. He concludes that the house is empty and that he is alone. The attack therefore ends not in rescue but in renewed confinement, injury, and separation from the people searching for him.

Narrative Significance

The encounter reverses the expected meaning of escape. Scott leaves the house because the closed back door and freezing porch make remaining there dangerous, but the open cellar window becomes his only refuge from a predator. His movement out into the yard does not enlarge his freedom: it exposes how little control he has over the conditions around him, from weather and architecture to an animal that can attack from the air.

The Sparrow’s repeated dives also shape the scene’s pace. Scott’s progress is measured in inches, while the bird can cross the space and strike again before he can recover. The contrast makes the yard feel vast without requiring a change in its ordinary landscape; snow, distance, and the missing window pane acquire their force through Scott’s scale and immediate need. The scene’s final turn—from a fight to reach the house to a fall back into the cellar—makes survival possible only at the cost of the escape he had chosen to attempt.