26 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 
for it, Yes; there is a deep clift, a great chasm, more 
than a thousand feet (some say two thousand) feet in depth. 
Ages had passed away, and nobody had dreamed of any 
other way to reach the lower valley than that over the 
mountain ; but Marie, whose lover lived below, had heard 
of a plot by his rival to waylay him as he came by a track 
over the-ridge to visit her, so she tried the dreadful preci- 
pice, and found that by clinging with fingers and toes to 
the little ledges of the rock she could pass in a direct line 
along the face of it. She thus warned her lover of his 
danger, and enabled him to meet her secretly and safely 
by traversing the giddy path she had discovered ; and the 
lovers evaded—as lovers always do —both the cruel father 
and his accomplice, the wealthy rival. By this path they 
met as -usual, until at last detected; and then Ejotein 
Halfoordsen, the lover, was prevailed upon to fly in order 
to escape new plots upon his life. In the course of years 
the father died, the rival ceased to persecute, and Ejotein 
returned with fame and wealth. He came by the shortest 
way. Marie saw him coming, and called his name aloud ; 
he raised his arms and waved his hands as a signal of 
recognition, and by doing so was overbalanced and fell. 
She watched his falling body till it disappeared in the 
foam of the Rinkan Foss; when the dark veil of madness 
fell over her mind, and fulfilled its beneficent intent by 
shutting out a knowledge too horrible for endurance !’ 
Williams having come to the farm, got a little girl to 
guide them to the edge of the precipice, whence a distant 
view of the Foss is obtained, and to show him the begin- 
ning of the track leading to the descent to the Stege 
itself—which, however, she had been forbidden to go near. 
‘I then,’ says Williams, ‘ proceeded along what I supposed 
to be the Marie Stege, a ledge of rock trodden with foot- 
slips, varying from six inches to a foot in width, with a 
sloping wall of rock above and the chasm below; this 
continued until I came to a part where there are two tracks, 
one apparently leading over the hill, the other direct to the 
