Independent People by Halldor Laxness

ON the afternoon of the fifth day Bjartur ploughed his way home across the marshes, knee-deep in snow. He was feeling anything but pleased with himself, ashamed of what he felt had been a most ignominious journey, and alternating between hope and fear as to the fate of his sheep in the home pastures; and now, to cap it all, there wasn't even a flicker of light in the window to welcome him home when at last he did return, for the croft was buried in snow and no attempt had been made to clear the door or the window; nowhere was there a passage cut through the drift, not a wisp of smoke rose from the chimney. He crawled up on to the roof, scraped the snow from the window and shouted: "Rosa, see if you can't get me a shovel out through the door."

The dog gave a pitiful howl inside in the living-room, the only answer; and when the crofter started shouting to his wife again, the dog leaped up at the window from inside and scratched at it with her paws. He began then to wonder whether his wife might not have been taken ill, and feeling rather apprehensive about it, he started on the drift like one in a frenzy. He had to scrape the snow aside with his hands, slow work, but eventually he managed to clear sufficient space about the door to worm his way inside.