And so the night wore on till it was time to sleep.

On this same day Eric rode up from his farm on Ran River and took his road along the brow of Coldback till he came to Stonefell.  Now all along Coldback and Stonefell is a steep cliff facing to the south, that grows ever higher till it comes to that point where Golden River falls over it and, parting its waters below, runs east and west—­the branch to the east being called Ran River and that to the west Laxa—­for these two streams girdle round the rich plain of Middalhof, till at length they reach the sea.  But in the midst of Golden River, on the edge of the cliff, a mass of rock juts up called Sheep-saddle, dividing the waters of the fall, and over this the spray flies, and in winter the ice gathers, but the river does not cover it.  The great fall is thirty fathoms deep, and shaped like a horseshoe, of which the points lie towards Middalhof.  Yet if he could but gain the Sheep-saddle rock that divides the midst of the waters, a strong and hardy man might climb down some fifteen fathoms of this depth and scarcely wet his feet.

Now here at the foot of Sheep-saddle rock the double arches of waters meet, and fall in one torrent into the bottomless pool below.  But, some three fathoms from this point of the meeting waters, and beneath it, just where the curve is deepest, a single crag, as large as a drinking-table and no larger, juts through the foam, and, if a man could reach it, he might leap from it some twelve fathoms, sheer into the spray-hidden pit beneath, there to sink or swim as it might befall.  This crag is called Wolf’s Fang.

Now Eric stood for a long while on the edge of the fall and looked, measuring every thing with his eye.  Then he went up above, where the river swirls down to the precipice, and looked again, for it is from this bank that the dividing island-rock Sheep-saddle must be reached.

“A man may hardly do this thing; yet I will try it,” he said to himself at last.  “My honour shall be great for the feat, if I chance to live, and if I die—­well, there is an end of troubling after maids and all other things.”

So he went home and sat silent that evening.  Now, since Thorgrimur Iron-Toe’s death, his housewife, Saevuna, Eric’s mother, had grown dim of sight, and, though she peered and peered again from her seat in the ingle nook, she could not see the face of her son.

“What ails thee, Eric, that thou sittest so silent?  Was not the meat, then, to thy mind at supper?”

“Yes, mother, the meat was well enough, though a little undersmoked.”

“Now I see that thou art not thyself, son, for thou hadst no meat, but only stock-fish—­and I never knew a man forget his supper on the night of its eating, except he was distraught or deep in love.”

“Was it so?” said Brighteyes.

“What troubles thee, Eric?—­that sweet lass yonder?”

“Ay, somewhat, mother.”