Independent People by Halldor Laxness

WITH this victory of Gudbjartur Jonsson's there was an end, for the time being at least, of all spectral activity on the moors. As a man cuts down worm-diseased sheep in the spring, so did he cut down both religion and philosophy on the night when he drove the parish to the door and ordered his children to bed. Some folk say that he also hanged the cat. If the ghost thought that Bjartur would lose heart, sell out and seek a new home because of this second disaster to his sheep, then he was due for a disappointment. The devil had had all his trouble for nothing, Bjartur stood firm as a rock. And though he suffered a great loss in the engagement, the crofter learned never to yield an inch of ground. What followed now was merely the aftermath of events that had already taken place.

It was the shortest day. The sky grew overcast during the morning, with low clouds, snow-charged and threatening, hanging half-way up the mountain slopes. No wondrous gleam lit soul or landscape; there was only a little midday no sooner come than gone, yet how much darkness was needed to wrap it round! And the Sheriff was expected soon. The crofter gave no one his orders for today's work; it was as if he wished to await the decision of the authorities as to who was master here, he or Kolumkilli; but all the same little Gvendur followed him out with the bitch when he went to feed his few remaining sheep. The eldest boy sat by the window, knocking his knees together and staring in silence at an old drawing scratched on the table. He did not speak even when spoken to, let alone think of doing a hand's turn at the yarn on the spindle, and little Nonni, who sat knitting beside his grandmother, looked at him and, understanding him in the subtle, inexplicable way that reaches farther than words or images, went over to him consolingly.