Independent People by Halldor Laxness

ONE evening when the meadow mowing was almost over, when dusk was already falling, for the days were rapidly drawing in, what should they see but a man with a pack-horse picking a trackless way down from the top of the heath to the flats on the other side of the lake? Here was a peculiar sort of expedition-obviously a stranger to the district, maybe not quite right in the head. Or was it an outlaw? What did the fellow think he was doing, running around on other folk's land? Perhaps it was an elf-man. At any rate it wasn't any normal sort of person. Even Bjartur stopped work and leaned forward on the handle of his scythe to watch this person who scorned so much the beaten track. What was the fellow looking for? He explored the flats near the lake, surveyed the lake itself, likewise the air. Was it a foreign scientist? Or a land speculator from the south? Was he speculating? On other people's land? Finally he took the baggage from his horse's back and let it loose in the marshes on the other side of the lake, what the devil. Then he walked round the lake and made his way towards them. They stood watching him, work forgotten. Riddle. Mystery. Is there anything more enthralling than a stranger in the landscape? The children forgot even the cruel fatigue of the fifteenth hour.

He did not seem to bear much resemblance to other people. He was bareheaded and wearing a brown shirt and armless pullover; sunburnt, slim, newly shaved, slight stoop, fine features and judicious eyes like a foreigner, good evening.