BOOK I
Ormarr Ørlygsson[9]
BOOK II
The Danish Lady at Hof[107]
BOOK III
Guest the One-eyed[189]
BOOK IV
The Young Eagle[273]

BOOK I
ORMARR ØRLYGSSON

CHAPTER I

Snow, snow, snow!

Below and above—here, there, and everywhere! Up to his knees in snow, Pall à Seyru struggled across the wind-swept heights. The snow whirled down in great downy flakes, making it impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. Stooping, with heavy, weary steps, he tramped on, an empty sack slung across his shoulders.

He had come from the trading station, and was on his way home to his own hut in the mountains; the store-keeper had refused to grant him further credit, and in consequence, he had chosen to return by this lonely track across the hills, where he was sure of meeting no one on his way. It was hard to come home at Christmas-time with empty hands to empty pots and hungry mouths.

His only comfort was the snow. It fell so thickly as to shut out all around, and seemed to numb even the poor peasant’s despair within the dismal prison of his mind.

Now and again he heard a sound—the whir and cackle of ptarmigan flying overhead.

Suddenly a gust of wind sent the snow flying over the ground. Another—and then gust followed gust, growing at last to a veritable hurricane, that swept the very snow-clouds from the sky. And as if by magic, a vast plain of snow lay open to his eyes.

All Hofsfjordur was suddenly visible. Pall turned, and saw the last of the clouds sweep down into the dark blue-green of the sea. To the south-east, the peaks of the Hof Mountains rose out of the water, and over the eastern landscape towered a long range of rocky mountains that gradually merged into the great south-western plateau. His eye rested for a moment on the vicarage farm of Hof—a few straggling buildings clinging to the mountain-side, among which the black church itself loomed out, right at the mouth of the fjord. The houses of the trading station he could not see; they lay beyond, on the northern shore of the fjord, safely sheltered behind the rocky walls of the islets that offered such fine harbourage—to any ship that managed to reach so far.