Independent People by Halldor Laxness

THE EVENING was far spent when he came home. The return was a very lengthy business, as he was driving two ewes before him, a ewe that had lambed and another that was still carrying. The mother-ewe had had one lamb and her udders were swollen with milk; the other was old Kapa. She was suspiciously heavy for a skinny old ewe, and since her udders were practically dry, there was no prospect of her being able to suckle two. It was a devil of a job herding them along, damned if they would keep going in the right direction. The bitch was very impatient and the man had to keep calling her off, one must not set dogs on them, never set dogs on ewes in the spring. The mother-ewe bolted off with her lamb in the opposite direction. When at last he had headed her off, old Kapa had turned also. So he had to go and fetch Kapa. The other was not long in seizing the opportunity, and raced off at full speed, with head in the air, in another direction altogether. This went on and on, and it was for this reason that the crofter was so long in returning home. But he got his own way in the end, for he happened to be more stubborn than both ewes put together; he had learned too much from sheep in his day to give in to sheep. The ewes stood at last at the foot of the home-field; now he would have to get the mother in and milk her. There was no sign of life in the house, probably they were all in bed, but he was averse to waking them up and asking for help, and went on running round the ewe. The ewe ran in endless circles; the man ran in endless circles also; for a while each party's obstinacy seemed quite indomitable, but finally the ewe submitted and suffered herself to be driven into the stalls. The lamb hopped light-footed about the pavement and the vegetable garden; it hopped on to the roof and bleated. It sprang down from the roof and jumped on to the garden wall and bleated. It ran away in towards the mountain and down along the brook. Gripping the ewe with her head between his legs, he milked her into a bowl, and though she floundered about as if in a frenzy, he managed to get three gills or more from her. When he had released her she bleated her way to her answering lamb. Old Kapa was grazing away at the bottom of the home-field, quite contented now. The night was bright, but by no means mild; showers on the moors, mists on the mountains. The birds were silent for the space of an hour except for a loon complaining at long intervals down by the lake.

When he went inside, he saw something sitting huddled up on a box in the entry. It did not move. It was a human being nevertheless. She had changed into her old dress with the holes in the elbows and was sitting with her hands in her lap, those mature, woman's hands with their long bones and their peculiar thumb-knuckles. Her calves were too heavy, her hips too full for a girl of her age; it was easy to see that she was a grown woman. She was Madam of Myri's grand-daughter. She did not look up when he crawled in through the door, did not move the hands in her lap. Was she sleeping in a heap there with her face in her bosom? Or was she afraid to look up and meet his eyes?