Add files from ibiblio as of 2025-03-08 18:51:29HEADmain

8 files changed, 5 insertions, 8922 deletions

diff --git a/40921-0.txt b/40921-0.txt
index a2b8d92..7d2b247 100644
--- a/40921-0.txt
+++ b/40921-0.txt
@@ -1,38 +1,4 @@
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grim: The Story of a Pike, by Svend Fleuron
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: Grim: The Story of a Pike
-
-Author: Svend Fleuron
-
-Illustrator: Dorothy P. Lathrop
-
-Translator: J. Muir
-            J. Alexander
-
-Release Date: October 2, 2012 [EBook #40921]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40921 ***
 
 [Illustration: “A wild chase was going on in the depths, and where it
 passed the rushes bowed their sheaves.”]
@@ -3689,364 +3655,4 @@ ALFRED A. KNOPF, _Publisher_, NEW YORK
 
 End of Project Gutenberg's Grim: The Story of a Pike, by Svend Fleuron
 
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE ***
-
-***** This file should be named 40921-0.txt or 40921-0.zip *****
-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
-        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/2/40921/
-
-Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
-will be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
-rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
-research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
-redistribution.
-
-
-
-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
-http://gutenberg.org/license).
-
-
-Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works
-
-1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
-
-1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
-paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
-collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
-are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
-the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
-a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
-Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
-States.
-
-1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
-copied or distributed:
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
-or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
-1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
-terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
-word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
-form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
-that
-
-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
-     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
-     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
-     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
-     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
-     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
-     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
-     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
-     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
-     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
-     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-     License.  You must require such a user to return or
-     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
-     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
-     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
-     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
-     of receipt of the work.
-
-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
-collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
-your equipment.
-
-1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
-your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
-refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
-opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
-the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
-
-
-Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
-people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
-and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
-
-
-Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
-Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
-http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
-throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
-809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
-business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
-information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
-page at http://pglaf.org
-
-For additional contact information:
-     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
-     Chief Executive and Director
-     gbnewby@pglaf.org
-
-
-Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
-particular state visit http://pglaf.org
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
-To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
-
-
-Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
-with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
-
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
-unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
-
-
-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
-
-     http://www.gutenberg.org
-
-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40921 ***
diff --git a/40921-0.zip b/40921-0.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index 43ecb47..0000000
--- a/40921-0.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/40921-8.txt b/40921-8.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index af4fc64..0000000
--- a/40921-8.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,4052 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grim: The Story of a Pike, by Svend Fleuron
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: Grim: The Story of a Pike
-
-Author: Svend Fleuron
-
-Illustrator: Dorothy P. Lathrop
-
-Translator: J. Muir
-            J. Alexander
-
-Release Date: October 2, 2012 [EBook #40921]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: "A wild chase was going on in the depths, and where it
-passed the rushes bowed their sheaves."]
-
-
-
-
-GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE
-
-Translated from the Danish of
-
-Svend Fleuron
-
-by J. Muir and J. Alexander
-
-Illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop
-
-New York MCMXXI
-
-Alfred A. Knopf
-
-
-
-
-COPYRIGHT, 1919
-
-By SVEND FLEURON
-
-COPYRIGHT, 1921
-
-By ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.
-
-Original Title: Grim
-
-PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
-
-
-
-
-To devour others and to avoid being devoured oneself,
-that is life's end and aim.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-  I: LIFE
-  II: IN THE SHELTER OF THE CREEK
-  III: GRIM GOES EXPLORING
-  IV: THE MARAUDERS
-  V: THE PEARLY FISH
-  VI: THE MAN-ROACH
-  VII: THE RASPER
-  VIII: THE ANGLER'S END
-  IX: THE WEDDING FESTIVAL
-  X: IN THE MARSH
-  XI: TERROR
-  XII: GRIM DEVELOPS
-  XIII: A FIGHT WITH AN OTTER
-  XIV: THE ANGLER FROM TOWN
-  XV: LUCK
-
-
-
-
-ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-A wild chase was going on in the depths, and where it passed the rushes
-bowed their sheaves.
-
-With a hiss it curves its neck and turns the foil upwards, snapping and
-biting at its tormentors.
-
-She snaps eagerly at the nearest "worm," but it escapes her by adroitly
-curling up.
-
-The bird darts upon her from behind with outstretched claws, and drives
-them with full force into her back.
-
-
-
-
-I: LIFE
-
-
-Clear running water filled the ditch, but the bottom was dull black,
-powdery mud. It lay inches deep, layer upon layer of one tiny particle
-upon another, and so loose and light that a thick, opaque, smoke-like
-column ascended at the slightest touch.
-
-A monster, with the throat and teeth of a crocodile, a flat,
-treacherous forehead, and large, dull, malicious eyes, was lying close
-to the bottom in the wide, sun-warmed cross-dyke that cut its way
-inland from the level depths of the great lake. The entire monster
-measured scarcely a finger's length.
-
-The upspringing water-plants veiled her body and drew waving shadows
-over her round, slender tail.
-
-When the sun was shining she liked to stay here among the bottom
-vegetation and imitate a drifting piece of reed. Her reddish-brown
-colour with the tiger-like transverse stripes made an excellent
-disguise. She simply _was_ a piece of reed. Even the sharp-eyed heron,
-which had dropped down unnoticed about a dozen yards off, and was now
-noiselessly, with slow, cautious steps, wading nearer and nearer, took
-her at the first glance for a stick.
-
-All the ditch-water life of a summer day was pulsating around the young
-pike.
-
-Water-spiders went up for air and came down with it between their hind
-legs, to moor their silvery diving-bells beneath the whorls of the
-water-moss. One boat-bug after another, with a shining air-bubble on
-its belly to act as a swimming-bag, and for oars a pair of long legs
-sticking far out at the sides, darted with great spurts through the
-water, or rose and sank with the speed of a balloon. The young pike
-peered upwards, and saw in the shelter of a tuft of rushes a collection
-of black, boat-shaped whirligigs, showing like dots against the shining
-surface. The little water-beetles lay and dozed; but all at once a
-sudden storm seemed to descend upon them and they scattered
-precipitately, whirling away in wider and wider circles, only to
-congregate again just as suddenly, like a flock of sheep.
-
-The young pike disappeared from the heron's view in a cloud of mud, and
-glided off to some distance, finally coming to anchor on a wide
-submerged plain in a broad creek, shadowed by a clump of luxuriant
-marsh marigolds, whose yellow flowers gleamed out from among the
-clusters of green, heart-shaped leaves.
-
-There was never any peace around her. When one animal was on its way
-down, another would be on its way up. And the bed of ooze beneath her
-was in incessant motion. Sticks moved to right and left; hairy balls
-lay and rolled over one another; there was a twisting and turning of
-larvae in all directions. The active water-beetles were dredging
-incessantly, releasing leaves and stalks which slowly and weirdly rose
-to the surface. Air-bubbles, too, were set free, and ascended quickly
-with a rotary motion.
-
-Here two large tiger-beetles were fighting with a poor water-bug. The
-flat-bodied insect stretched out its scorpion-like claws towards its
-enemies, but the tiger-beetles seized it one at each end, beat off its
-claws with their strong palpi, and tore its head from its body. It must
-have been almost a pleasure to find oneself so neatly despatched!
-
-Everything tortured and killed down here, some, indeed, even devoured
-themselves. To lose arms and legs and flesh from their body was all in
-the order of the day; and anything resting for but a minute was taken
-for carrion.
-
-The big horse-leech had wound its rhythmically serpentine way through
-the water. It was tired now, and had just stretched itself out for a
-moment's rest, when the supposed pieces of stick upon which it lay
-seized it, and voracious heads with sharp jaws attacked its flesh. It
-was within an ace of being made captive for ever, but at last succeeded
-in making its escape and pushing off, with two of its tormentors after
-it.
-
-The young pike watched attentively the flight of the black leech. She
-saw that _to devour others and to avoid being devoured oneself_ was the
-end and aim of life.
-
-For a long time she remained quite still, only an undulating movement
-of the dorsal fin and the malicious glitter of the eyes revealing her
-vitality. Slowly she opened and closed her small, wide mouth, and let
-the oxidizing water flow over her blood-red gills.
-
-It was not long before she had forgotten her recent peril, and once
-more became filled with the cruel passion of the hunter.
-
-From the shadow of the marsh marigolds she darted under the newly
-unfolded leaf of a water-lily. This was a very favourite lurking-place;
-she could lie there with her back right up against the under surface of
-the leaf, and her snout on the very border of its shadow, ready to
-strike. The silvery flash of small fish twinkled around her, and
-myriads of tiny shining crustaceans whisked about so close to her nose
-that at any moment she could have snapped them up by the score into her
-voracious mouth.
-
-It was especially things that moved that had a magic attraction for
-Grim. From the time when, but twelve to fifteen days old, she had
-consumed the contents of her yolksac, and opened her large voracious
-mouth, everything that flickered, twisted and moved, all that sought to
-_escape_, aroused her irresistible desire.
-
-In the innermost depths of her being there was an over-mastering need,
-expressing itself in an insatiableness, a conviction that she could
-never have enough, and a fear that others would clear the waters of all
-that was eatable. An insane greed animated her; and even when she had
-eaten so much that she could eat no more, she kept swimming about with
-spoil in her mouth.
-
-On the other hand, anything at rest and quiet possessed little
-attraction for her; she felt no hunger at sight of it, and no desire to
-possess it: _that_ she could take at any time.
-
-----Meanwhile, the keen-eyed heron, wading up to its breast in the water,
-comes softly and silently trawling through the ditch.
-
-Sedately it goes about its business, stalking along with slow, measured
-steps. Its big, seemingly heavy body sways upon its thin, greenish
-yellow legs, its short tail almost combing the surface of the water,
-while its long, round neck is in constant motion, directing the
-dagger-like beak like a foil into all kinds of attacking positions.
-
-[Illustration: "With a hiss it curves its neck and turns the foil
-upwards, snapping and biting at its tormentors."]
-
-Sea-crows and terns scream around it, and from time to time three or
-four of them unite in harrying their great rival. Just as the heron has
-brought its beak close to the surface of the water, ready to seize its
-prey, the gulls dash upon it from behind. With a hiss it curves its
-neck and turns the foil upwards, snapping and biting at its tormentors.
-
-An irritating little flock of gulls may go on thus for a long time; and
-when at last, screaming and mocking, they take their departure, they
-have spoilt many a chance and wasted many precious minutes of the big,
-silent, patient fisher's time.
-
-The gulls once gone, the heron applies itself with redoubled zeal to
-its business. From various attacking positions its beak darts down into
-the water, but often without result, and it has to go farther afield;
-then at last it captures a little eel.
-
-It is not easy, however, to swallow the wriggling captive. The eel
-twists, and refuses to be swallowed; so the bird has to reduce its
-liveliness by rolling up and down in its sharp-edged beak. Then it
-glides down.
-
-This time, too, fortune is disposed to favour the young pike. The
-heron, coming up behind her, cautiously bends its neck over the
-drifting piece of reed. It sees there is something suspicious about it,
-but thinks it is mistaken, and is about to take another step forward.
-When only half-way, it pauses with its foot in the air; and the next
-moment the blow falls.
-
-Grim only once moved her tail. Then she was seized, something hard and
-sharp and strong held her fast, and she passed head foremost down into
-a warm, narrow channel.
-
-There was a fearful crush of fish in the channel, and much elbowing
-with fins and twisting of tails. Something behind her was pushing, but
-the throng in front blocked the way: she could get no farther.
-
-And yet she glided on! Very slowly the thick slimy water in the channel
-bore the living, muddy tangle that surrounded her along; she felt the
-corners of her mouth rub against the sides of the channel; she could
-scarcely breathe.
-
-In the meantime the heron was flying homewards to its young, carrying
-Grim and the rest of the catch. Out on the lake lay a boat in which a
-man sat fishing. Experience told the bird it was a fisherman, but here
-the bird was wrong. The man had a gun in the boat, and as the bird
-sailed upwards a shot was fired which compelled it to relinquish a part
-of its booty in order to escape more quickly.
-
-Grim was among the fortunate ones. Suddenly the crush in the long, dark
-channel grew less, and the sluggish stream of mud that was bearing her
-along changed its course. A little later the stream gathered furious
-pace and carried her with it; she saw light and felt space round her;
-she was able to move her fins.
-
-Then she fell from the heron's beak, from a height of about twenty
-yards. She had time to notice how suffocatingly dry the other world
-was. It seemed to draw out her entrails, and all her efforts to right
-herself were in vain.
-
-Then she regained her native element; water covered her gills, and she
-could begin to swim.
-
-
-
-
-II: IN THE SHELTER OF THE CREEK
-
-
-Grim was a year old when her scales began to grow.
-
-In her early youth, when she could only eat small creatures, she had
-lived exclusively upon water-insects and larvae; but from now onwards
-she had no respect for any flesh but that which clothed her own ribs.
-
-She attacked any fish that was not big enough to swallow _her_, and
-devoured bleak and small roach with peculiar satisfaction. Now she took
-her revenge on the voracious small fry that had offended her when she
-was still in an embryo state.
-
-She had not been hatched artificially, or come into the world in a
-wooden box with running water passing through it. No, the whole thing
-had taken place in the most natural manner.
-
-In the flickering sunshine of a March day, her mother, surrounded by
-three equally ardent wooers, had spawned, and the eggs had dropped and
-attached themselves to some tufts of grass at the edge of the lake. The
-very next day, however, little fish had begun to gather about those
-tufts; one day more, and there were swarms of them. Eagerly they
-searched the tufts and devoured all the eggs they could find; and so
-thoroughly did they go about their business, that of the thousands upon
-thousands of the mother's eggs, only two that had fallen into the heart
-of a grass-stalk were left.
-
-Out of one of these Grim had come. The sun had looked after her,
-hatched her out, and taught her to seize whatever came in her way. Now
-she was avenging the injuries to her tribe.
-
-She possessed a remarkable power of placing herself, and knew how to
-choose her position so as to disappear, as it were, in the water. The
-stalks of the reeds threw their shadows across her body in all
-directions; water-grass and drifting duck-weed veiled her; the silly
-roach and other restless little fish flitted about her, sometimes so
-close to her mouth that she could feel the waves made by their
-tail-fins. Some would almost run right into her; but when they saw her,
-then how the water flashed with starry gleams, and how quickly they all
-made off!
-
-She liked best to hide where the water-lilies floated in islands of
-green, for there the treacherous shadows--her best friends--fell
-clearly through the water; absorbed her, as it were, and made capture
-easy for her. If she found herself discovered, she would retreat with
-as little haste as possible; for that sort of thing aroused too much
-attention, and created widespread disturbance in the fishy world.
-
-If she lay on the surface, for instance, and suspected that she was
-being watched from above, she became, as it were, more and more
-indistinct and one with the dark water, letting herself sink
-imperceptibly, at the same time beginning to work all her fins. In
-ample folds they softly crept round the long stick that her body now
-resembled, fringed and veiled it and bore it away.
-
-And just as she knew how to place herself, so did she know how to
-move--cautiously and discreetly.
-
-Formerly she had measured only a finger's length, and now she was
-already about a foot long; her voraciousness had increased in a
-corresponding degree. She could eat every hour of the day. She would
-fill herself right up to the neck, and even have half a fish sticking
-out beyond. It was quite a common sight to see a little flapping
-fish-tail for which her digestive organs had not room as yet, sticking
-out of her mouth like a lively tongue. She would swim about
-delightedly, sucking it as a boy would suck a stick of candy.
-
-One day she was gliding slowly through a clump of rushes, as lifeless
-and dead as any stick. Her eyes seemed to be on stalks and spied
-eagerly round, but her body exhibited the least possible movement and
-eagerness.
-
-She turned, but even then holding herself stiff, and playing her new
-part of a drifting stick in a masterly manner. As she did so she
-discovered her brother, as promising a specimen of a young pike as
-herself, with all the distinguishing marks of the race.
-
-Although cold-blooded, she was of a fiery temperament, and as she was
-also hungry, she stared greedily and with cannibal feelings at the
-apparition. Her appetite grew in immeasurable units of time. The food
-was at hand, it stared her in the face; she forgot relationship and
-resemblance, and bending in the middle so that head and tail met, she
-seized her brother with a lightning movement.
-
-He was quite as big as she, struggled until he was unable to move a
-fin; but the stroke was successful.
-
-She began to understand things, and grew ever fiercer and more violent
-and voracious. Her teeth were doubled, and as they grew they were
-sharpened by the continual suction of the water through the gills. It
-was as if she understood their value, too, for she would often take up
-her position on the bottom and stir up grains of fine, hard sand, thus
-improving the grinding process considerably.
-
-It was mostly in the half-light that she now went hunting, in the early
-dawn or at dusk. Her sharp eyes could see in the dark like those of the
-owl and the cat. When the shadows lengthened, and the red glow from the
-sky spread over the water, she felt how favourable her surroundings
-were, and she became one with the power in her mighty nature.
-
-But in the daytime, she lay peacefully drowsing.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The creek in which she lived had low-lying banks.
-
-Among the short, thick grass, orchids and marsh marigolds bloomed side
-by side, and the ragged robin unfolded its frayed, deep pink flowers
-upon a stiff, dark brown stalk, that always had a mass of frothy
-wetness about its head.
-
-Farther out, the muddy water and horsetails began, and beyond them the
-tall, waving reeds, which stretched away in great clumps as far as it
-was possible for them to reach the bottom.
-
-Where _they_ left off, the round-stalked olive-green bog rushes began,
-wading farther and farther out, until in midstream they gathered in low
-clumps and groves, inhabited by an abundant insect life.
-
-Beautiful butterflies danced their bridal dance out there, some bright
-yellow with black borders, others with the sunset glow upon their
-wings. Dragon-flies and water-nymphs by the score refracted the sun's
-rays as they turned with a flash of all the colours of the rainbow.
-Black whirligigs lay in clusters and slept; and on the india
-rubber-like leaves of the water-lily, flies and wasps crawled about
-dry-shop, and refreshed themselves with the water.
-
-In the still, early morning the reeds sigh and tremble. The little
-yellowish grey sedge-warbler comes out suddenly from its hiding place,
-seizes the largest of the butterflies by the body, and as suddenly
-disappears again. A little later it begins its soft little sawing song,
-which blends so well with the perpetual, monotonous whispering of the
-reeds.
-
-Grim, down among the vegetation, only faintly catches the subdued
-tones; she is occupied with an event that is developing with great
-rapidity.
-
-A moth has fallen suddenly into the clear water. It tries to rise, but
-cannot, so darts rapidly across the surface of the water, dragging its
-tawny wings behind it. It puts forth its greatest speed, making in a
-straight line for the shore.
-
-But the whirligigs have seen the shipwreck, and dart out on their
-water-ski to tear the thing to pieces. They advance with the speed of a
-torpedo-boat, and in peculiar spiral windings. A wedge-shaped furrow
-stands out from the bow of each little pirate, and a tiny cascade in
-his wake.
-
-The poor moth becomes wetter and wetter, and less and less of his body
-remains visible as he exerts himself to reach the safety of the reeds,
-where he can climb up into a horse-tail and escape, just as a cat
-climbs into a tree to escape from a dog.
-
-Unfortunately he does not succeed; he is in a sinking condition, and
-one of the whirligigs fastens voraciously upon his hind quarters.
-
-The successful captor, however, is given no peace in which to devour
-his prey. He has to let it go, and seize it, and let it go again; and
-now a little fish--a bleak--begins to take a part in the play.
-
-The fluttering chase continues noiselessly across the surface of the
-water, and urged on by the whirligigs above and the bleak beneath, the
-moth approaches the reeds.
-
-With muscles relaxed and dorsal fin laid flat, Grim lies motionless at
-its edge, whence again and again she catches a glimpse of the little
-silvery fish.
-
-Its delicate body is fat outside and in, plump and well nourished, and
-to the eyes of the fratricide is an irresistible temptation, making her
-hunger creep out to the very tips of her teeth.
-
-Her dorsal fin opens out and is cautiously raised, while her eyes
-greedily watch the movements of the nimble little fish.
-
-Flash follows flash, each bigger and brighter than the other.
-
-Grim feels the excitement and ecstasy of the spoiler rush over her--all
-that immediately precedes possession of the spoil--and delights in the
-sensation. She begins to change from her stick-like attitude, and
-imperceptibly to bend in the middle.
-
-The plump little fish is too much engrossed in its moth-hunt.
-Unconcernedly it lets its back display a vivid, bright green lake-hue,
-while with its silvery belly it reflects all the rainbow colours of the
-water.
-
-Another couple of seconds and the prey is near.
-
-Then Grim makes her first real leap. It is successful. Ever since she
-was the length of a darning-needle, she had dreamt of this leap, dreamt
-that it would be successful.
-
-The sedge-warbler in the reedy island heard the splash, and the closing
-snap of the jaws. They closed with such firmness that the bird could
-feel, as it were, the helpless sigh of the victim, and the grateful
-satisfaction of the promising young pirate.
-
-She was the tiger of the water. She would take her prey by cunning and
-by craft, and by treacherous attack. She was seldom able to swim
-straight up to her food. How could she chase the nimble antelopes of
-the lake when, timid and easily startled, they were grazing on the
-plains of the deep waters; they discovered her before she got near them
-and could begin her leap!
-
-Huge herds were there for her pleasure. She had no need to exert
-herself, but could choose her quarry in ease and comfort. The larger
-its size, and the greater the hunger and lust for murder that she felt
-within her, the more violence and energy did she put into the leap. But
-just as the falcon may miss its aim, so might she, and it made her
-ashamed, like any other beast of prey; she did not repeat the leap, but
-only hastened away.
-
-But when her prey was struggling in her hundred-toothed jaws and
-slapping her on the mouth with its quivering tail-fin, then slowly, and
-with a peculiar, lingering enjoyment, she straightened herself out from
-her bent leaping posture. If she was hungry, she immediately swallowed
-her captive, but if not, she was fond, like the cat, of playing with
-her victim, swimming about with it in her mouth, twisting and turning
-it over, and chewing it for hours before she could make up her mind to
-swallow it.
-
-She ate, she stuffed herself; and with much eating she waxed great.
-
-
-
-
-III: GRIM GOES EXPLORING
-
-
-In the creek where she lived among rushes and reeds, a shoal of perch
-had their abode. They were scarcely as big as she, but much thicker and
-older. Their leader in particular, by whose movements the whole flock
-were guided, was a broad bellied high-backed fellow, who knew the value
-of the weapon of defence he possessed in his strong, spiny dorsal fin.
-
-He had a peculiar power of varying his colour so that it always suited
-the light in the water and on the bottom. There were days when he
-looked an emerald green, without any brassy tinge; at other times he
-let the black flickerings along his sides stand out like the stripes on
-a zebra's skin, and gave a brilliancy to his belly like that of the
-harvest moon. That was for fine weather. There was life in the water
-then!
-
-But common to them all were the rough, rasping scales that grew close
-up round the carroty-red fins, and the round yellow eyes with
-coal-black pupils, which seemed to rest on cushions and roll outside
-the head so that the fish could see both up and down.
-
-The perch were quite as rapacious as Grim herself; they poached upon
-her small-fish preserves, and often disturbed her in the chase. Had she
-only been equal to it, she would gladly have devoured some of them,
-too.
-
-One evening when she was so hungry that she under-estimated everything,
-she saw her chance of attacking their dark-hued leader, but _Rasper_,
-becoming aware of his dilemma, defended himself with the energy of a
-bulldog. The combat was on the point of turning in his favour, when
-Grim disappeared from view by taking a bold salmon-leap high into the
-air. After that they always swam scowling past one another at a
-respectful distance; but Grim was well aware that the striped swimmer
-had no friendly feeling towards her.
-
-As she grew bigger, and felt herself more and more the powerful despot,
-whose dental armature had been provided simply and solely for the
-purpose of biting others, her hatred of the high-backed one
-instinctively became greater. They were of such widely different
-natures!
-
-Grim was passionate, fierce, and reckless in her attacks, and gave
-herself up to the intoxicating pleasure of the chase until she grew
-dizzy. She ventured all, and lost herself in rapacious lust. The
-cunning perch seldom made a false step, but looked carefully ahead, and
-was always cool and self-restrained in his behaviour; and yet he was
-always ready--quite as ready as she--to attack, but had a masterly
-perception of the chances of success. He would frequently dart towards
-her, then suddenly stop and consider, and stand sniffing at her like a
-dog.
-
-She was still only a hobbledehoy, flabby and loose-jointed, and not
-quick enough in emergencies. She had only just found out where the
-great ones of her own species liked to post themselves, and where it
-behoved her, therefore, to be on her guard; but beyond this she was not
-burdened with much experience.
-
-As a young fish she had never been out into deep water, but wisely kept
-to the quiet parts--the channels and the broad waters of the creek,
-where her strength was proportionate to the exigencies of her
-surroundings, and where she instinctively felt that her great enemies
-would run aground if they pursued her. Here she found shelter among the
-reeds and the rushes.
-
-But there was something beyond; something great and strong, something
-always disquieting; and this attracted her.
-
-She began to go farther and farther afield, and one day, when the water
-was especially bright and clear, she set out on a journey from one end
-of the lake to the other.
-
-The bottom of the creek was fertile, hilly country. Long slopes,
-clothed with water-lily plants, and laden with yard-high, round-stalked
-grass, ran out in parallel chains, framing, as it were, a corresponding
-stretch of broad, deep valleys. Here and there were steep narrows,
-passes through which the shoals of fish had to venture when going from
-one pasture to another.
-
-She swam just below the surface of the water, and looked with interest
-at the varied scenery of the bottom and all the unfamiliar and strange
-things that presented themselves. How delightful it was to let herself
-go and give her fins free play!
-
-She reached a rocky reef, and swam over a group of high, wild mountains
-that rose steeply out of the black bottom ooze with rugged sides,
-wooded in parts, and in others barren and naked. The mountains were
-full of deep ravines, the ice of centuries of winters' freezing of the
-bottom had furrowed them with crests and clefts, planed off the points
-of the summits, and formed rounded tops or plateaux.
-
-Here and there in this rocky land with its numerous winding inlets and
-sharp corners, a conspicuous stump stuck up. Several of them had a ring
-at one end, and from a few waved a bit of rope. In the course of time
-they had dropped down from the other world. They were lost boat-hooks
-and anchors that had become hopelessly fixed; for the rocky reef was a
-good fishing-ground.
-
-There were many crayfish in the lake, and Grim, as she swam, had a
-bird's-eye view of them walking about, swarming over the bottom of the
-lake in all directions, laboriously measuring out the kilometres in
-crayfish steps.
-
-In several places there were whole towns of them, and in the
-perpendicular cliffs on the deep side of the reef, there was a large
-crayfish population. Here she noticed certain specimens, larger than
-she cared about. They lay in wait among the rocks or in the depths of
-the primeval forest, and caught what fish they could in their deadly
-claws. Or they ran backwards through the water with claws and feelers
-extended, step by step and with a beat of the tail; if the waves they
-set up had not warned her in time, they might have run into her at any
-moment.
-
-From the reef she passed on over a great sandy desert, where the worms
-lay in rings, and the fresh-water mussels in colonies. She came upon
-some unpretending and not very luxuriant plants with swinging stalks
-that could turn with the current and the waves; but what struck her
-most, and broke the monotony more than anything else, was the skeleton
-remains of animals, boats, and a few human beings, that lay scattered
-about.
-
-Where the substratum of the rocky reef still extended under the sand
-without disappearing altogether, she saw these slowly-perishing remains
-of the meteors from the air-world, lying scoured and clean as on a
-tray. In the eyeholes of the skulls the crayfish sheltered when they
-rested on their long journey over these perilous wastes, and perch
-lurked in the shadow of the ribs.
-
-Farther out, where current and drifting sand alternately had the
-mastery, things were incessantly being uncovered and reburied; and in
-the middle of the desert waste, where there were quicksands, sometimes
-an arm would project from the sand-dunes, sometimes a leg, or the
-frontal bone of a skull bearing a huge pair of horns, or the prow of a
-boat. Finally, the desert ended in a whole skeleton reef--the remains
-of a drove of animals that a dozen years before had lost their way in
-the drifting snow and the dark, taken a short cut over the ice, and
-fallen through.
-
-Once beyond this, the fertile bottom, with black soil, plants and
-little fish, began again. Then came a new, high-lying land, not stony
-and rough like the first, but rich and luxuriant. It lay outside a
-projecting point of land, of which it formed the natural continuation
-under the water.
-
-On each side of the point a long creek stretched far inland, the
-scenery under the water being a repetition of that above. A luxuriance
-and fertility was visible on all sides; the water-grass waved in
-stretches like corn in the fields, and the giant growths of the
-water-forests were like the shady trees on land.
-
-On the dividing-line between these fertile regions and the sterile
-tracts where, on stormy days when the waves ran deep, the drifting sand
-laid bare old, fish-gnawed skeletons, or covered up new ones, there was
-a big slough, which formed the beginning of a low-lying, wide-spreading
-bog, in which the sources of the lake had their origin.
-
-There was always movement in the vegetation here. The mud rose and fell
-as if waves were passing beneath it. Now and then the surface opened,
-and jets of water as thick as tree-trunks shot into the air. There were
-high and low jets, forming, as it were, trees and bushes of water,
-which sometimes burst into bloom with large, strange-hued, fantastic
-blossoms of foam and bubbles.
-
-In this slough lived the hermit of the lake, the giant sheat-fish _Oa_,
-a scaleless, dark, slimy monster, which only on rare occasions,
-generally in stormy weather, rose from her mudbed and revealed herself
-to human eyes. Generally, she moved about on the bottom, living her
-lonely life of plunder where the law of gravitation ultimately brought
-everything that was no longer able to swim or float about.
-
-Centuries earlier, pious men had brought her progenitor, wrapped in wet
-grass, here to the lake, and planted the family of _Silurus_ outside
-their cloister walls, so that its oily, digestible flesh could serve
-them as a good dish for fast-days.
-
-The experiment was only moderately successful, and this hardy old fish
-was the last of her race.
-
-Oa had the body of an eel, but was as long and thick as a boa
-constrictor. If she were ever caught, and placed upon a wagon, her tail
-would hang out beyond even the longest wagon-perch.
-
-Her head was large and squat, with a huge shark's mouth and small,
-blinking eyes. Six long, worm-like barbels, whose ends curled and
-twisted, hung from the corners of her mouth; she felt her way with them
-as she sedately crawled over the muddy bottom. She had neither neck nor
-breast, but her capacious stomach hung down immediately behind her
-gullet, like that of an old sow. It was always distended, and
-apparently so heavy that its owner's back was quite bent.
-
-Oa was a sinister-looking skulker in dark places, a terror to every
-poor fish that had been injured and could no longer swim nimbly about.
-
-Like a moss-grown tree-stump she lies buried in the mud when the still
-inexperienced Grim swims in among the bottom springs, and again and
-again unwittingly passes over her scaleless, dull green body. She is
-quite invisible, only the two longest of her barbels projecting from
-the mud, and incessantly curling and bending like two earth-worms
-hastily making for the bottom at the approach of an enemy.
-
-Grim, who is always in want of food and cannot resist delicacies,
-swoops down like a falcon at sight of the "worms," without noticing the
-watchful gleam in the two little amber-coloured stones that lie
-quivering on the muddy bottom. She snaps eagerly at the nearest "worm,"
-but it escapes her by adroitly rolling itself up.
-
-The active little pike is still too far off the big pirate's teeth; it
-must be enticed nearer, so that she can be certain when she strikes.
-
-Grim does not respond to the invitation, however, but prefers to try
-the other "worm," and when that, too, with a rapidity unusual in a
-worm, curls up into a ball and goes to the bottom, she instinctively
-grows suspicious, and sets her tail-screw going, just as the cunning
-water-hyena throws off its mask of mud, and makes a wild dash at her.
-
-[Illustration: "She snaps eagerly at the nearest 'worm,' but it escapes
-her by adroitly curling up."]
-
-Grim flees precipitately--so terrified that her cold blood almost
-stiffens--and darts out of the black cloud that Oa in her eagerness has
-raised.
-
-The entire hollow seems alive now; everything is gliding and rocking,
-everything is moving beneath her; she seems to be swimming in black
-darkness with an angry, gaping, sucking mouth close behind her. She has
-to keep up full speed with her tail, and to paddle with all her fins,
-fore and aft, to avoid being drawn in.
-
-When the water begins to clear, and daylight returns, she finds herself
-in the middle of a shoal of gay little fish, which, at her sudden
-appearance among them, scatter like a flock of starlings at the dart of
-a sparrow-hawk down among them. She feels the seething and boiling from
-the quick flapping of tiny tails; and involuntarily she goes with them,
-swimming away as quickly as the most nimble of the shoal, to a large,
-wide-spreading island of reeds.
-
-Here Grim remained for a month, during which time she calmed down, and
-came to a full understanding of her own cruel, voracious nature.
-
-One day, when she was proceeding along the border of her new beat, she
-came upon some precipitous cliffs, standing stone upon stone straight
-up from the bottom, full of holes and openings. She swam into large,
-slimy-green caverns and lofty grottos. It was the ruin of the old
-monastery she had found.
-
-For the present she dared not venture back across the lake. The
-encounter with Oa had given her a feeling that dangers lurked out in
-the deep water, to which she was by no means equal. She turned into the
-nearest creek, and lost herself in a series of large reed-forests.
-Through them she went on into the bay until the world around her grew
-narrower and narrower, the surface of the water and the bottom
-approached one another, and the dreaded element in which she could not
-breathe made known its superior force by many loud sounds.
-
-Here a great fringe of forest encircled the lake, and Grim turned
-headlong back.
-
-
-
-
-IV: THE MARAUDERS
-
-
-Borne on a gentle breeze, a large crane-fly comes sailing out of the
-wood. It likes to cool its long legs, as it flies, by trailing them
-along the surface of the water. The whirligigs are after it, but it
-easily avoids them. Then comes a sudden surprise: a fish pops up its
-mouth, and closes its scissor-jaws with a snap on the insect's legs,
-and it disappears in the centre of a rocking series of rings.
-
-The lake is perfectly calm, its green-black surface smooth and shining,
-and full of drifting summer clouds. The reeds are reflected in it and
-look double their height, and the trees mirror their branches there,
-seeming twice as leafy; and a red house with a white flagstaff on one
-of the banks becomes quite a little submarine palace.
-
-More crane-flies arrive, and circle after circle breaks the stillness
-of the water, just as mole-hills break the uniform smoothness of the
-meadow, as fishes' mouths dart up by the score side by side.
-
-It is in one of the valleys in the submarine mountainous region that
-this shoal of thousands of bleak lies. It covers the area of a
-market-place, and makes the water alive for fathoms down.
-
-On the one side rises the forest of weed, like a fir-forest on a
-Norwegian mountain; on the other the thick green water-grass waves and
-bends like the corn on some fertile plain in Hungary. In front and
-behind, the valley winds on between the hill-sides until it widens out
-and finally loses itself in the barren, sandy desert.
-
-Suddenly, at the end of the neighbouring valley, the water seethes and
-foams. It is cleft incessantly from bottom to surface, bubbles rise and
-whirlpools are formed, and a long strip of lake foams and spurts.
-
-It is not like a single large animal darting forward with rapidly
-twisting tail, and leaving a wake and waves behind it; but a general
-effervescence that makes the depths gleam with millions of scales.
-
-It is the perch, the marauders of the lake, on a hunting expedition!
-
-They go together in a large company, like soldiers in an army, rows of
-them above, beside, and behind one another. There are hundreds upon
-hundreds of them, and yet a single unit.
-
-With their uppermost layer only a couple of inches below the surface of
-the water they hasten on. Then all turn at once, changing from the
-long, narrow marching column into compact formation. A fresh signal,
-inaudible, imperceptible to all but themselves, and once more, in a
-trice, the narrow, smoothly-gliding hunting-column is reformed.
-
-Just as they twist and turn in the horizontal plane, so do they in the
-vertical. They go suddenly and headlong from the surface to the depths,
-spinning out from their compact mass a long, living thread.
-
-And the thread becomes longer and longer, and thinner and thinner,
-while they pass through one of the narrows in the submarine mountainous
-region.
-
-It is the shoal of bleak they are after. Now they are in the valley
-where it lies.
-
-The lively little freshwater herring as yet suspect no danger; they are
-in constant motion, occupied in snapping up the fallen, half-drowned
-insects. Noses are pushed up, and little thimble-like mouths open; the
-water streams in, and with it the food. An eager interchange from
-bottom to surface goes on; for when the upper layer is satiated, it
-likes to enjoy its feeling of well-being in peace, until voracity once
-more makes them all rivals.
-
-The splash of the waves on the surface lifts the gluttons up and down,
-while the ground-swell rocks the satiated to rest.
-
-The perch have quickened their pace; involuntarily the speed is
-increased; they already scent their prey.
-
-Foremost of the company, with a dark-golden, high-backed leader at
-their head, swim a couple of hundred of the finest perch. They are at
-their strongest age, and in best possible condition, suffering neither
-from too great a weight of fatness, nor from the nervous lassitude of
-insufficient nourishment. They lead, and with frolicsome eagerness push
-past one another, so as to be the first to arrive.
-
-After them comes the great mass of the horde, big, heavily-laden craft,
-their round backs and swelling bellies testifying to their success in
-their toil for material needs. There are perch among them of half an
-arm's-length, and the thickness of the biggest of wrists. Sheaves of
-silvery-gleaming rays flicker far out in their wake.
-
-The rest of the fierce horde are large and small mingled--hundreds of
-perch of half-a-pound's weight, and rank upon rank of others well over
-two pounds.
-
-For the present the whole flock keeps to the bottom, darting along with
-dorsal fin erect, the stiff spines bristling menacingly. It is as well
-to have bayonets fixed in case of the sudden appearance of a pike.
-
-All at once the van slips away from the rest, and the latter have to
-exert themselves to catch up, twisting and turning their tails, and
-unfurling the stiff sail of their dorsal fin. There must be nothing now
-to check their speed; fair-weather sailing is over, and the
-privateering expedition has begun.
-
-The certainty of booty fills them all.
-
-The vanguard has led the marauders well; they have come _under_ their
-prey, and now shoot up among the unfortunate, unsuspecting bleak. All
-order among the assailants instantly ceases, and each member thinks
-only of its own mouth, and cares for nothing but getting it filled.
-
-Like yellow flashes of water-lightning the perch dart into the shoal of
-little fish, and like grain among a flock of chickens, masses of bleak
-disappear into their mouths. They kill and devour--and it will be still
-worse when the rear-guard comes up.
-
-Now they arrive, and the alarm in the swarm of bleak below spreads with
-magical swiftness to the upper layers, where the bewildered little
-creatures make off at full speed. Gleam after gleam flashes up as the
-little shining fish, uncertain of their way, twist and turn about. Each
-makes itself as long and thin as it can, so as to show as little as
-possible, and disappear, as it were, in the water.
-
-But now the fierce horde becomes still fiercer. The rear-guard
-overtakes the fugitives and cuts off their retreat; and smack after
-smack is heard after their charge.
-
-The swarm of bleak scatters in wild panic. Thousands of them, in their
-terror, make for the surface, leaping into the air like jets from a
-fountain. They tumble over one another and try in their bewilderment
-which can leap highest and farthest. They rise like flying-fish out of
-the water with a flash, and once more disappear with a splash into the
-water. There is a splash when they rise, and a splash when they again
-reach the surface of the water; making a sound like the falling of
-torrents of rain.
-
-Hell is beneath them in the water! The yellow devils not only menace
-them from the side; they come upon them from all directions. When they
-descend in crowds from their flight into the air, they grow stiff with
-terror on finding themselves face to face with great, amber eyes that
-seem starting out of their sockets to go greedily hunting on their own
-account. Then a mouth opens, shoots out a pair of concertina-like lips,
-and changes into a funnel; and the poor little fish disappear into a
-chasm, like threads into a vacuum cleaner.
-
-Above the spot a cloud of terns is circling. They fly low with
-half-extended legs and drooping wings, ready to dart down. Sometimes
-they make a catch, sometimes miss their aim, but have the good fortune
-to take a fish that inadvertently appears close by; indeed the bleak
-often leap straight into the birds' open beak. The birds hold them at
-all sorts of angles in their beak, and fly away with them, shrieking
-and screaming, pursued by their fellows.
-
-Poor little bleak! they were so pretty to look at. An emerald green
-colour extended from the back right over the head and nose; and the
-rims of their eyes when they blinked could sparkle and shine like the
-gem itself. Their shining breast was whiter than a swan's, and their
-plump sides gleamed and sparkled like ice under a wintry moon.
-
-But from the time they left their Creator's hand they were intended to
-serve as food for _others_.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-A boat lay anchored a few hundred yards off. In it was an elderly man.
-
-An angler this. He had been out since early morning, and had a
-delightful day.
-
-Not a single bite. But what did that matter?
-
-He was lying now at the bottom of the boat, dreaming.
-
-He was a regular visitor to the lake. His ancestors' love of a free,
-out-of-door life had entered into his blood.
-
-It is well known that it takes three generations to make a gentleman;
-but it would take three times as many to create, out of a race that
-ever since the morning of time had lived out of doors, a generation
-that did not care to handle either gun or rod.
-
-In his youth his gun had been his best friend; but the chase demands
-much of legs and muscles and heart. When a man is no longer in his
-prime, he should beware of paying ardent court to Dame Diana. In her
-suite--it is useless to deny it--the old man is seldom looked upon with
-favour: he has had his day. But Father Neptune clasps him rapturously
-in his wet embrace, and sets the fish around his boat leaping and
-playing.
-
-It was thus in his later years that his fishing rod had become the old
-man's joy and companion.
-
-Season after season he made his weekly journey from town by rail, and
-then drove out to the lake. He fished in the good old-fashioned way,
-talked very little, and was always alone in the boat.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The weather to-day, from a fisherman's point of view, is the worst
-possible. The July sun is shining hotly, and sends its beams deep down
-into the water.
-
-The lake slumbers. There is a bottle-green hue above the deep water,
-and a lilac shade in the shallows; but over the sandy bottom the colour
-is drab. Far off a flock of wild ducks rising raise some little, gentle
-waves, that look so blue, so blue!
-
-The angler, who is a big, sturdy man with large, black-rimmed
-spectacles upon his voluminous nose, is in his customary
-fishing-dress--an old straw hat with an elastic under the chin, his
-coat off, and no collar, on his legs a pair of thick, yellowish brown
-moleskin trousers, his feet in a pair of felt shoes, lined with straw.
-
-He generally stays all day, and it is still far from evening.
-
-He is now lying outstretched in midday drowsiness, enjoying the great
-peace that rests on the lake. He has wound the ends of his lines round
-his wrist; he waits patiently, and if towards evening he is fortunate
-enough to haul in a pike, he will be filled with a quiet, intense joy.
-
-Suddenly he awakes with a start. He hears a rushing sound like that of
-the paddles of a distant steamer striking and tearing the water; he
-sees the terns flocking, and the surface of the water broken again and
-again by bleak leaping high into the air. He takes up his anchor, and
-rows up until he hears the smack, smack of the greedy perch all round
-him, and knows he is in the middle of the whirlpool of fish.
-
-He gets four lines clear, and has enough to do in throwing them out and
-pulling them in. He throws off his hat and waistcoat, and loosens his
-belt--but even then he is drenched with perspiration.
-
-At last he can do no more, and drops exhausted on to a thwart.
-
-In less than twenty minutes he has caught more than fifty perch,
-weighing from one to three pounds apiece; they are lying in a brassy
-heap in the boat.
-
-Then he opens his wallet, takes out the bottle containing clear liquid,
-and takes a nip. This he is accustomed to do every time he catches a
-fish of any importance. He drinks to the health of the lake, the lake
-with the fresh waves and the clear, bright water--the lake that
-treasures his dearest memories.
-
-
-
-
-V: THE PEARLY FISH
-
-
-Between a cloudy sky and rough water the wind tore through reeds and
-rushes.
-
-Grim was lurking at the edge of the bottom vegetation; she had not seen
-fish-food since the previous evening.
-
-There is a splash in front of her, a broad foot is pushed obliquely
-down into the water and forces a large, heavy "swimming-bird" past her.
-
-A little later there is a sudden gleam. A small fugitive of a fish
-darts past as though taking advantage of the wake of the big bird, from
-one reedy shelter to another.
-
-Grim has already eaten so many bleak and roach that they are beginning
-to be everyday fare; and now, there goes a new kind of food, a fish
-that shines all red and green and blue and black, with large,
-glittering, beady eyes!
-
-At a distance she follows the tit-bit that swims through the water like
-no other fish, turning incessantly round and round on its own axis.
-
-How hard it works! there is a bright starry light all round it, and its
-tail-fin quivers behind in a long thick trail.
-
-She cannot look at it unmoved. "After it!" say her eyes; "after it!"
-echoes her empty stomach.
-
-She does not succeed in seizing it across as she generally does, but
-has to swim up and swallow it from behind in one mouthful.
-
-It is a curiously sharp-spined little fish! Now that she has it in her
-mouth, it is not nearly so tempting to her palate as it was before her
-eyes. Well, she has taken the trouble to catch it, so down it shall go!
-
-She cannot get it to move in her mouth; it will not stir! She takes a
-firmer hold, turns with it, and hastens back into her hiding place.
-
-Then it begins to bite her in the throat! And now--she becomes quite
-uneasy--her throat suddenly tries to go the opposite way to her tail!
-What can be the matter?
-
-She forcibly sets her teeth into her refractory captive, when suddenly
-she is pulled over.
-
-How strange! The simple little pearly fish takes the form of a master,
-and drags her after it through the water; no matter how much she tries
-to back, no matter what powerful strokes she makes to force it to obey
-her will, she is obliged to yield and go with it. Her brain is
-bursting; she cannot comprehend this powerlessness: the fish is in her
-mouth and on its way down her throat, and yet it is dragging her along
-with it.
-
-No! _No!_ And she sets to work and lashes the water into foam with her
-tail; but the little pearly fish is inexorable; it is too strong for
-her.
-
-There must be some strange witchcraft about it all!
-
-Instead of her swimming away with it, here it goes swimming away with
-her, and on they go, nearer and nearer up towards the light and the
-surface, which she instinctively shuns. All at once the pearly fish
-leaps into the air with her. She wants to let go, to spit it out, but
-she is too late; for the moment she is not quite conscious.
-
-Her eyes ache; she feels as if they would jump out of her head. Her
-sight is gone, and a bright red mist surrounds her. She tries to swim,
-but cannot get her balance; she tries to strike with her tail in order
-to escape, but the water round her offers no resistance.
-
-A suffocating feeling seems suddenly to contract her gills; she cannot
-open them far enough. She opens her mouth to let water in, but only
-swallows dry wind.
-
-The next moment she is lying floundering in a boat, and then a human
-hand takes her up.
-
-"A pickerel! undersized!" mutters the angler. And he carefully takes
-out the revolving bait and weighs the fish in his hand. Alas! not even
-a miserable two pounds!
-
-He takes out his sheath-knife and marks her dorsal fin; and then, in
-the hope of finding favour with the gods on account of his magnanimity,
-and catching the fish again at some future time, he tosses her over the
-side of the boat, and Grim is given back to life.
-
-It was much the same feeling as when she was ejected from the heron's
-throat; her intestines seem bursting, and her breath to be leaving her.
-Then she reaches the water, where she lies floating on her side, and
-slowly wakens as though from a long fit of unconsciousness.
-
-And in a trice she has disappeared into the depths.
-
-Her suspicion was aroused. The world was full of villainies, more than
-those that she herself committed!
-
-Twilight was falling.
-
-The sun's fiery columns, that stood obliquely over the lake, suddenly
-separated and flowed out, their glowing fragments lying like burning
-oil upon the surface of the water. Then they were gradually
-extinguished; the darkness of evening shed its deep blue tones over
-them.
-
-Long and black, the shadows crept out from the banks; the little fish
-made their way in to the shelter of the reeds, and the pursuing pike
-went to rest. And while the surface still sparkled with a peculiar
-mother-of-pearl brilliancy, the darkness of night already brooded
-closely beneath the water.
-
-As quietly as a snail, a little crayfish was crawling over the bottom;
-but it was more watchful than a polecat, and listened and felt its way
-carefully. It came out from the rocky reef, and was now on its way over
-the sandy plain in to the nearest bank.
-
-_Nipper_ was a robber, encased in coat of mail; he spared nothing that
-he thought he was big enough to overcome. A sharp, serrated dagger
-projected above his jaws, and the pincers of his large claws were
-half-open, ready to fasten upon the unwary prey.
-
-He was a young crayfish, no longer than the span of a child's hand, and
-with a tail no broader than a finger. His eyes were stalked, and the
-long, wide-straddling feeling carefully searched the bottom for more
-than a body's length in advance. The half-closed claws scraped over
-rocks and water-lily roots in their efforts to drag the mailed body
-along.
-
-Suddenly there was a shock to his feelers. Nipper suspected danger, and
-struck with his tail; and at once beginning to go backwards, he
-hastily, with his front claws, stirred up a cloud of mud all round him.
-Step by step, long and rapid, he hastened, without changing his
-direction, back through the water.
-
-It was only a false alarm, however; there was no otter or
-water-rat--its worst enemies--close to the tips of it claws. It might
-take things quietly, and safely set about its search for nocturnal prey
-again. It stopped beating the water with its tail, and with extended
-claws and tail outspread, it let itself sink slowly through the water.
-
-Sedately and circumspectly, and with extreme caution, he felt his way
-before advancing over the bottom of the lake on his clawed legs.
-
-Nipper was descended from an old "backslider" that had been a monster
-of the order of Decapoda, and had at last become so fat and heavy that
-she could hardly swim, and preferred to crawl about. Like the rest of
-her species, she had espoused a new male crayfish every other year; the
-wedding generally took place in November, when out-of-door pleasures
-were few, and everything, even the water, was cold and grey.
-
-When the happy honeymoon was over, she always suddenly broke off all
-relations with her spouse, and withdrew into one of the roomiest of the
-numerous deep, dark, basement flats through the winter, waiting for the
-sun and the white water-lilies to bring out her little children.
-
-And they came!
-
-Next summer a swarm of little creatures crept out of the eggs that
-adhered in scores to her tail. From their birth they had tiny claws, a
-tiny rostrum, and tiny feelers; and they were all an exact copy of
-_him_. Holding fast with one claw to their mother's poorly-developed
-caudal legs, they hung as to a strap, while with the other claw they
-fought among themselves as much as possible.
-
-It was a little world of malice, cannibal cruelty, and good, healthy
-egoism that the old monster thereafter dragged about with her, and she
-defended it--to her praise it must be said--on every occasion against
-the violence and malice of the outside world, by interposing her own
-body.
-
-Half without will of her own and unconsciously, she kept life in her
-young. Every time she required food and drew it forward under her body,
-the baby crayfish got a bit of it. On such occasions they let go of one
-another, and struck out with his free claw, and hastily transferred the
-morsel to his mouth.
-
-Nipper had hung to one of the outside "straps" and he was with his
-mother on the night she went into a crayfish trap. He let go the strap
-in order to cram himself with both hands, and he did succeed in
-producing a feeling of extraordinary satiety; but when the trap was
-suddenly hauled up, he was not quick enough in taking hold again; the
-water drew him with it, and washed him out through the wide-meshed net.
-In this way he lost the shelter that in the natural order of things he
-could still have reckoned on beneath the caudal fan of his great
-parent; but fate had nevertheless been kind to him. While old Madam
-Nipper, boiled red like a lobster and with lettuce round her tail, lay
-that evening curled up on a dish, her little nipper was surrounded with
-all the wonders of life; and he went at them with greedy claws and
-flapping tail. It was not for nothing that he had been born with the
-art of going backwards.
-
-He had now lived through three winters, and was therefore not
-altogether lacking in experience of life. He had successfully passed
-the age in which his growth of no more than a few weeks made each
-jacket-sleeve and trouser-leg too short, and had gone through nearly a
-score of those dreadful "metamorphoses." They were terrible bouts, real
-illnesses that cost both toil and suffering. The last was still fresh
-in his memory. He had suddenly become uneasy, could not even rest in
-his hole. It was the same with them all; the same unrest seized upon
-all the inhabitants of the crayfish-town that extended over the rocky
-reef. None of them any longer ventured out at sunset; they remained
-indoors. Then the illness began with an irresistible desire to scrape
-and rub oneself. It was impossible to hold out against it; one had to
-let it go its way and follow a certain system.
-
-The "system" commenced with some wild movements of arms and legs.
-Resting on the carapace and the big claws, the hind part of the body
-was raised, and the tail spread, and then the thighs, legs, and ankles
-were worked until a hole was made in the old, armour-like skin, and it
-split up length-wise.
-
-The transformation took days, so one had to sleep now and then, and
-rest often. Food there was none.
-
-One started up out of sleep, unable to rest for fear of being left in
-the old skin and dying of starvation. Nothing for it but to go on, and
-try to get over this most unpleasant process of moulting as quickly as
-possible.
-
-Nipper, who was endowed with all the courage and impatience of youth,
-was one of the most eager to push on the business. He quickly got rid
-of the armour-plates on his legs, and was now working to get out of his
-tight coat-of-mail, throwing himself on his back, and rubbing himself
-backwards and forwards upon the floor.
-
-The coat-of-mail has already come away from the trouser-band, and he
-can raise it from his body; he presses its stiff edges against a stone,
-while he works himself backwards out of the old crayfish-case. First he
-carefully releases both his stalked eyes, then come the feelers, and
-then the big claws. Oh, but it hurts! And he shakes and twists himself,
-sweating with exertion and anxiety. After all, it is going confoundedly
-fast! Suppose a limb got into a tangle, or a joint refused to move!
-Then it would break, as he very well knows: that kind of thing is a
-part of the crayfish system!
-
-At last the whole thing was accomplished, and he felt stronger and
-freer than ever. This evening he would kill! This evening he would eat
-his fill!
-
-The darkness grew deeper The sinister shadows were already darkening
-the banks, and the deep water, which before had shone with gleaming
-mother-of-pearl, seemed now leaden-grey. There was not a water-lily
-leaf to be seen on the surface; it was impossible to distinguish a
-single green stalk.
-
-Down on the soft mud, beneath a rotten, wrinkled tree-stump, sat a
-fresh-water mussel with its shells half-open. As the round feelers of
-the crayfish came gliding tentatively round its foot, it became aware
-of the approach of an enemy, and had already almost closed its
-broadly-gaping shells when Nipper, at the last moment, managed to
-introduce the end of one of his broad pincers, like the heel of a boot
-in a door. The mussel worked its hardest, straining till its shells
-creaked and splinters actually broke off in its efforts to crush the
-hard armour-plating of the claw.
-
-Nipper lay as though petrified in front of his victim, and let the
-mussel exhaust itself while he watched his opportunity to drive his
-unimpressionable wedge farther and farther in. He had the patience of
-Job, and knew that he only had to wait.
-
-It was not long before he had succeeded in making room for his other
-claw, and now he was cutting and picking at the body of the poor
-mussel, one claw holding the pearly shells sufficiently wide apart for
-the other to convey dainty pieces of mussel-flesh to his mouth.
-
-At last the poor mussel's strength is quite exhausted. It gives up, and
-Nipper's head and the front part of his body disappear inside the
-shell.
-
-Nipper remained there the first part of the night, cramming himself,
-but at last could not help regretting that a mussel went such a little
-way. He took a short rest, and then towards morning set out confidently
-in search of more.
-
-Unfortunately there were no sleepy, unprepared mussels to surprise; but
-behind some stones in one of the deep, submarine mountain passes stood
-a solitary fish, which had apparently got out of its course.
-
-The quiet little Nipper had not much experience regarding the way in
-which a crayfish catches fish; he was more accustomed to snails and
-mussels. He could also seize a younger comrade in his claws, and suck
-him dry, leaving nothing but his coat and trousers; but the finned
-animal, with fans on back, belly, and tail, the nimblest of all--how
-did one catch it?
-
-He slyly pushes through a crack at the bottom of the cave, raises
-himself on the points of his closed claws, and blinks with his
-diverging eyes. He has turned back his feelers so that they shall not
-betray him while he is investigating his immediate surroundings.
-
-Grim is standing motionless with her head towards the current, leaving
-her forked tail to keep her, with slight movements, on the same spot.
-She is tired and exhausted after her long struggle with the pearly
-fish, and feeling rather languid and out of sorts. Her lacerated mouth
-hurts every time she opens it to rinse it with fresh water. She has,
-therefore, sought shelter in the rocky cave to compose herself and
-recover.
-
-Something quivers along her breast and cautiously pricks her sides and
-belly. It must be a waving grass-stalk!
-
-Then a gradually-increasing, continuous pressure is suddenly felt round
-the thick part of her tail.
-
-With a sudden movement of her body she tries to shake off the supposed
-reed, but at the same moment the pressure is felt like a bite from the
-hard, sharp-edged beak of a heron. She struggles and writhes, and warps
-herself out of the cave; and now she flies, fin-winged, through the
-water.
-
-Nipper is hanging to her stern. He has only hold with one claw, but
-hopes to get the other, which he is waving about, also applied. His
-tail-fan works incessantly.
-
-Grim drags at full speed over stock and stone, and swings him out of
-one gyration into another; through reed-beds and undergrowth, and far,
-far into the forest of water-weed; but he hangs on still!
-
-He feels, however, that his prize is rather more than he can manage.
-There is no time left for him to pick at the fish's flesh with his
-other claw; he was growing quite dizzy, for he was not accustomed to
-going _forward_ at such a pace!
-
-Then he stretches out his free claw to seize hold of a root, and thus
-try to chain his captive to the bottom.
-
-But the trick does not succeed. The jerk that follows is so violent
-that he loses his claw!
-
-He has now lost his chance, and lets go.
-
-Grim feeling herself relieved of his weight, and free in her movements,
-darts away with the speed of a run-away engine. In addition to the
-soreness of her mouth, she now has a pain in her tail. She will need
-some time to recover from both.
-
-Things had gone against her, and to tell the truth she did not think
-there was much fun in being a fish; but then she had to learn her
-lesson, and once bitten, twice shy, both in and above the water.
-
-The recollection of the strange little pearly fish long remained in her
-memory. Its stiff body, and continual turning about its own dorsal fin,
-without a single stroke of the tail, were long imprinted on her mind;
-and whenever afterwards the "tit-bit" appeared, her wounded mouth
-assured her voracious stomach that it was wiser to refrain.
-
-
-
-
-VI: THE MAN-ROACH
-
-
-Years went by; and Grim grew into a splendid fish. Her long, flat
-forehead was now continued straight into the strong duck-like beak of
-the upper jaw. A hollow in the middle enabled it, as it were, to
-project in canopies that hung down over her eyes, which thus acquired
-an expression even more cruel and scowling.
-
-The cheeks stood perpendicularly on each side of the forehead, and
-enclosed the cranium as between walls; it was as though she had had a
-dent on both sides of her head. The back of her neck swelled up like
-that of a bull, for here the muscles lay over the cranium in large,
-thick curves, until down by the neck, they gave place each to its
-branchial cleft, which was as large as a barn door.
-
-And what a mouth! It opened up far past the eyes! Generally, it only
-stood ajar; but to look into it when it opened wide was like looking
-into a barrel studded with nails.
-
-In the front of the lower jaw, the teeth stood thick as pins in a
-pincushion. They were small and pointed, and sloped backwards, so that
-they served as barbs. In along the sides came the long,
-widely-separated incisors, whose purpose was to enter into and hold
-fast the prey. They were more than half an inch in length, rounded and
-blunt, and resembled the teeth of a rake.
-
-The upper jaw was provided with a far more terrible armature. Whole
-rows of harrow-like teeth stood out, making a diabolical grater of the
-palate. They continued far down the throat, and even came forward over
-the tongue. Woe to the body that became jammed here! It was only
-released as mince-meat.
-
-But the throat that swallowed the victim was by far the most horrible
-contrivance.
-
-It resembled the drawn-up mouth of a sack. Down through it lay great
-rolls of swallowing-muscles, studded with grasping protuberances. In
-the midst of them the oesophagus was discernible, its aperture
-incessantly opening and closing with a suction that inexorably drew
-everything down with it.
-
-And her external equipment corresponded to her internal. The wonderful,
-dark colours of the shallows drew a broad stripe along her great back.
-About the forehead and along the back of the neck, the water-grasses
-had laid a ground-wash of their own deep green; and her sides were
-veiled by the flickering streaks of the reed-beds. Patches of gold,
-like the sunshine falling through the glassy surface of the water,
-shone out between the transverse stripes on her sides; and over the
-branchial arch and the belly lay the pure whiteness of the water-lily.
-
-Yes, she was adorned in all her splendour. Her scales gleamed with the
-rays of the sun and moon; and when, with the rapidity of lightning, she
-made a dart, it seemed like the twinkling of stars in the dark night of
-the deep waters.
-
-From this time onwards, her voracity knew no bounds. The desire for
-food, which she had possessed from her earliest days, and which had
-lain like a germ in the very heart of her nature, was given free play
-by means of the terrible weapons that Nature had placed at her
-disposal. No one else should now get a bite; she would be alone in
-clearing the waters of food.
-
-She now as readily seized her prey lengthwise as cross-wise; indeed,
-she even preferred, when hungry, to make straight for the head; by so
-doing, she wasted no time in turning it, but could swallow it at once.
-
-By nature she was very reserved, and had no desire for companionship;
-but her mental abilities were by no means small, and she was well able
-to make various observations, and profit by their lessons. Nor was she
-deficient in memory, as she distinctly showed every spring when going
-to spawn; she always found her way up the brook to the wide fen.
-
-She was very sensitive to every movement in the water, and in a way
-_heard_ with ease the boats, "the big birds." They always splashed so
-much with their oar-feet, or whisked their tail round in the water. She
-had often wondered at them! She had discovered that, like the grebe,
-they carried their young on their back; and, like all the other fish in
-the lake, she supposed them to be a part of the unrest up on the
-surface.
-
-Long before they came near her, she was distinctly aware of their
-approach.
-
-If she were high in the water, and the bird suddenly rushed down
-towards her, she darted to one side and hastened out of the way. It was
-different when the boat came slowly gliding along; then she only moved
-so as not to be run down.
-
-But it was many a day before she came to understand that it was they
-especially who wanted to harm her.
-
-One evening the old angler was rowing home late from his
-fishing-ground. The moon had risen, and shed her silvery light around
-his oars. They dipped down rhythmically, and came up with the silver
-dripping from them. Suddenly he noticed that one of them struck
-something, and the shock passed through the oar up into his arm. He was
-dragging something heavy, and could not bring the oar forward; and then
-he pulled the head of a pike up above the water. At the same moment the
-fish dropped, and the oar was free; but Grim was wiser after that.
-
-As the years passed she developed into a powerful ruler, and
-increasingly felt herself to be the divinely-favoured inmate of the
-lake. _She_ was not one of the rabble! She hunted large and small, and
-lorded it over the inhabitants of the lake as far as she possibly
-could.
-
-By more frequent and longer expeditions, she increased her knowledge of
-the lake, and learned the routes to all the reefs, creeks and banks;
-and she ascertained that in certain directions her world was immense.
-It was only the surface that she shunned, and the deepest depths; for
-there were great crayfish--to whom the Creator had been so good as to
-set their maxillary half at the end of a pair of long, jointed
-claws--and there, too, lived Oa, the dreaded fish-monster.
-
-Grim's territory lay half-way between these.
-
-In the pure light of early dawn, when the night flies and moths, drowsy
-and intoxicated with their nocturnal visits to the flowers, fell by
-hundreds into the water on their way home; when the swallows relieved
-the bats, and the whirligigs in the sheltered nooks began their
-noiseless scurrying over the water, beneath which the water-plants were
-beginning to appear in green, yellow and rust-red colours; when the day
-dawned down where Grim had her home, and the wide surface above her was
-filled with light and radiance--then she hunted most keenly, and felt
-most voracious, and then there was terror in her splash and snap.
-
-One morning early, a breeze is ruffling the surface of the lake, and
-winding, white-foamed currents are eating their way out among black
-shallows. The terns are diving down after small fish, and along the
-rush-bordered banks the rising sun is treading the water.
-
-Grim is abroad, pushing herself forward like a shadow along the bottom.
-Her cunning crocodile eyes are turned up so that they project from her
-head.
-
-A number of roach are thronging about a clump of rushes, examining
-leaves and stalks just as long-tailed tits search tree-tops and bark;
-they are inside it and outside it, sucking up the water-snails and
-insects.
-
-Grim stops with a jerk. She scarcely moves her ventral fins, and
-breathes very gently. At each breath she cautiously opens her mouth and
-draws back her tongue, thus filling the spiked barrel with water; then
-she carefully closes it again, shoots her tongue forward, and emits the
-water through her gills.
-
-The little fish gambol unwittingly close to her mouth. Her upturned
-eyes look still higher, and see the gleam of their white-scaled
-bellies.
-
-Now she is ready to spring.
-
-There is just a movement of the extreme tip of the tail. Only the
-shifting shadow-lines that the reeds cast over her body indicate that
-she is moving forward. She peers about continually, peevishly, and
-evilly. Only one thing troubles her; she can never decide which fish
-out of the swarming multitude she will take. True, she has made a
-special study of the way to direct her attack--as the ardent hunter his
-aim--where the throng is thickest; but the roach are nimble, and she
-seldom gets more than one at a stroke.
-
-Slowly and imperceptibly she rises, while all the fin-tips wag and wave
-in lingering enjoyment.
-
-Suddenly a little scarlet roach-eye discovers her black back, which up
-to the present had looked just like part of the bottom, and they fly
-away from her in a panic of terror. In one moment the rushy margin is
-empty.
-
-An accident that may happen even to the best of us! And Grim has to
-move on to fresh hunting-grounds.
-
-Among the floating forests of green feather-foil go big, broad-scaled
-bream. They follow close in one another's wake, and lie on the surface,
-letting the sunlight play upon their golden scales. Their fat bellies
-with the lobster-red fins, and their large, cod-like mouths, give an
-impression of simpleness. Yet they are cunning enough, and very
-cautious in all their behaviour.
-
-Several of them are covered with cuts and wounds on the back and sides,
-and it is evident they have already made acquaintance with a pike's
-mouth. The body of one of them is still bloody, and threads of flesh
-and torn scales make it look quite woolly as it moves through the
-water.
-
-They come from deep down at the bottom, and shine with mud and slime
-and water-moss. They whisk along with much movement and many strokes of
-the tail. Reeds and rushes swing and sway as they stop for a moment to
-rub themselves against them. As they pass through the open water,
-between the masses of vegetation, where the sun suddenly shines upon
-their amber scales, Grim hastily conceals herself in the forest of
-weed.
-
-The pliant water-plants, with their long stalks, accommodate themselves
-to the current, hanging westwards for an hour, only to turn just as
-unresistingly the opposite way the next. Stiff collars of leaves, like
-life-belts, hold up the naked stalks, and form a close, flickering
-thicket about the lurking lynx. Without the slime on her body, she
-would never get through.
-
-Soon the fat-bellies are before her; they are slouching along in little
-companies, with a thick, greenish, juicy rim to the corners of their
-fat mouths.
-
-Her purpose strengthens, her powers are doubled, but she is able to
-restrain herself: the moment has not yet come.
-
-Not until the last "water-cow" is straight in front of her does she
-reveal herself; and the water flashes and bubbles as Grim twists and
-turns in her efforts to come up with her prey.
-
-The flank attack, however, does not come altogether as a surprise to
-the "cow"; it has been prepared for it in this narrow passage, and
-therefore kept close to the bottom. As a stone bores its way into the
-ground, so does it plunge into the mud, stirring up the water, and
-digging itself in, so that Grim gets only mud and grains of sand
-between her teeth.
-
-Another accident which only sharpened her appetite and made her
-ungovernably fierce; and just then a little roach swam past.
-
-Grim started. Her embarrassment at her failure almost disappeared, and
-she involuntarily stiffened as she stood. She could see with half an
-eye that the little roach, which was limping along without any
-frolicsome jumps and twists, would be an easy prey.
-
-What luck! Roach were generally lively little fish, and not easily got
-hold of; and although they formed part of her daily fare, she had to
-use all her powers and unfold all her energy in order to catch two or
-three, at the most five, a day. It was only in May, when they lay in
-bundles among the rushes, amorously flicking their tails, that she had
-her fill of them, taking as many as a score in the day.
-
-Now only patience, a little more time to wait; for this time she would
-make sure of her fish!
-
-Just then there is a movement in one of the clumps of weed. The
-dusky-hued perch with the high back forestalls her. Right before her
-nose he darts like an arrow after the fugitive, but hesitates at the
-very moment of striking, stops, and sniffs.
-
-"Oh! so he daren't! He wants to have the whole company with him!"
-
-Grim's eyes are alight with the eagerness of the hunter, and her stiff
-tongue quivers in her mouth as, with widely opened jaws, she springs
-upon her prey.
-
-The roach is good enough! It wriggles between her teeth and tickles her
-cheeks and chin with slaps of its little tail; and yet ... it has an
-inexplicable strength like that of a little pearly fish that she dimly
-remembers.
-
-She grows angry. Is an insignificant little fish like this going to
-resist _her_ will? The silly little thing is ready to go any way but
-the one _she_ wants it to go; she can hardly get from one thicket of
-weeds to the other. She becomes so angry that she feels the blood
-burning in the back of her neck, and with a sudden vigorous effort, she
-gives the roach a violent tug.
-
-That helps; the fish becomes manageable, its strength vanishes. She is
-triumphant. Yes, she knew, of course, how it would be!
-
-Grim had been fortunate in her misadventure. True, it was a man-roach
-that she had bitten into, but she had fortunately broken the line, and
-now went off with a long trace dragging after her. She had swallowed
-the bait, but what made her horribly uncomfortable was that in doing so
-she had got a long, thorny water-plant fixed to her upper lip.
-
-They were the barbs of the triple hook that she took for thorns!
-
-At that moment she sees another little roach shining. It is just as
-languid as the previous one, and makes the same tempting impression.
-Instantly she makes a dash at it.
-
-The same comedy was gone through, the same incomprehensible strength in
-a puny roach, and the same work to get the refractory fish into her
-power.
-
-Well, she managed it at last; at last she had her mouthful.
-
-This one she swallowed too, but once more she had to spit out something
-sharp and prickly that hung to her upper lip on the opposite side.
-
-It was a long time before Grim managed to wear away the two triple
-hooks from the corners of her mouth, and in the meantime she swam about
-with the rusty things like an extra set of monster eye-teeth sticking
-out of her mouth. The pieces of line that trailed behind her often
-caught in things and chained her in an incomprehensible manner to reeds
-and rushes; but at last she pulled out one, and a little later the
-other, and a hard, gristly, leather-like skin formed where they had
-been.
-
-She gained some experience from this incident; henceforward, she
-regarded solitary, sickly-looking roach with keen suspicion. She would
-still take with confident voracity large roach and small; but she very
-reluctantly took a halting, languid fish like those that had pricked
-her so horribly that morning. Their drooping fins and heavy, wriggling
-flight had fixed themselves clearly in her mind's eye.
-
-Her peaceful youth, in which she had only had the heron and the
-crayfish and her own kind to fight with, had long since passed, and
-henceforth she was to see more and more of the angler's implements.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-But the old sportsman, whose tackle was wearing out, had to overhaul
-and renew his stock. It irritated him beyond endurance, and for a long
-time he felt ashamed of himself. From the resistance it had offered he
-felt quite convinced that the pike he had lost was at least worth a
-bronze medal. He would not tell anyone where it lay, but would take it
-himself when he had the opportunity.
-
-
-
-
-VII: THE RASPER
-
-
-The horde of marauders were chasing through the lake again, and behind
-them came the pike. These last did not go together, like the perch, in
-serried ranks at a furious hunting pace, but slunk along one by one
-from stone to stone, and from weedy clump to weedy clump.
-
-Grim is with them, and like a seal she helps herself to the flying
-bleak which in their terror rush blindly into her jaws. It is quick
-work, but nevertheless not quick enough. The gluttony of the perch
-angers and irritates her; she feels her belly growing larger, and her
-throat widening. She has room for more fish, mountains of fish!
-
-With a jerk of her body she comes nearer, and is now right in the
-whirlpool of bleak and perch.
-
-Quivering and trembling, the little fish fly in all directions as she
-tears among them, and with strong beats of her tail to right and left
-pursues her victims. Her eyes gleam, and her thin lips quiver with
-insatiable desire.
-
-A big, high-backed perch coolie makes a capture right in front of her.
-In his eagerness he makes such a commotion in the water that it looks
-as if it were full of thick, shining snakes. Snap! Snap! There goes a
-bleak right before her nose!
-
-This is more than she can endure! She dislikes this insolent lake-dog
-in a still greater degree than when, as a young pike, she stayed in the
-shelter of the creek. His cunning and deceit, his ability to save
-himself and to get her into a scrape, has of late frequently irritated
-her.
-
-A moment later, while she is in the middle of a spring, he happens to
-be pushed by his comrades right in front of her mouth. Her jaws are
-already opened, and the water is streaming in like a mill-race; she
-sees the bleak-fat upon the mouth of her plump opponent, and her
-ferocity and murderous lust are doubled.
-
-Then she gives way to the innermost need of her being. With an enormous
-development of energy, intoxicated with the joy of capture, she attacks
-the Rasper with the full strength of both her serrated jaws, opening
-them so wide, and dashing at him with such force, that they engulf him
-to far down his plump hog-back. The hundreds of little teeth with which
-her palate is paved have the same desire, the same purpose; to bore
-right in and hold fast.
-
-Just as the pike's attack is at its height, the Rasper suddenly raises
-his twelve-spined dorsal fin. During his chase of the little fish, it
-had lain neatly folded like a fan along his back; now it is transformed
-into a murderous weapon, and its bony ribs into a bundle of hidden
-sword-blades, now stiff and sharp like polished bayonets, now
-elastically pliable like rapiers.
-
-Joyfully Grim takes the big lump into her mouth. She feels that it
-pricks her, but the cavity of her mouth is not troubled with any
-exaggerated sensitiveness.
-
-Splendidly heavy and solid the Rasper feels as he lies upon her tongue!
-And yet--his rough, tile-like scales, and the very small amount of fat
-and slime on his skin, make it unusually difficult for her to get the
-lump down.
-
-He is hurting her now. She quickly takes a better hold, even letting
-her prehensile teeth come into play, and the long board-like tongue
-warp in co-operation; but no matter what she does, or how wide she
-opens her mouth, her efforts are in vain: the high-backed one refuses
-to move beyond a certain point.
-
-Incomprehensible! Impossible!
-
-She tries again. Besides her tongue and her prehensile teeth, she
-brings the muscles of her throat into play, and the bones of her head
-expand like a snake's. Colours dance before her eyes as the gullet
-opens and closes, trying to draw in the perch's head. But to no avail.
-The wedge remains immovable. The big mouthful is _too_ big!
-
-So there is nothing to be done, but give it up! Grim opens her mouth
-wide, relaxes her prehensile teeth, which, as readily as an adder's,
-turning on their hinges, return to the perpendicular; she opens her
-throat-muscles as far as she can, and even pushes with her tongue.
-"There! The torture in the spiked barrel is over. The prison is
-graciously open to the great perch."
-
-The Rasper, who, all through the battle, has been lashing out with his
-strong tail, which is hanging out of the pike's mouth, and throwing
-Grim from one side to the other, suddenly notices the loosening of the
-strait-jacket, and backs with a jerk. He thinks he is free, so easily
-does he swim now, although the darkness before his eyes is just as
-thick and oppressive.
-
-He is still in the pike's throat, and cannot get away, for he has his
-twelve stiffest dorsal spines bored into his enemy's palate; and the
-more he worries and works with his dangerous opponent, the deeper and
-more firmly do the spines fix themselves.
-
-In the meantime Grim, true to her pike-nature, has for a few moments
-lost nearly all her energy. The spines begin to hurt her, and her
-mouthful on the whole to incommode her. She cannot get sufficient water
-over her gills, and what does filter into her mouth in spite of the
-gag, is needed by the gag itself. She can feel it breathing inside her
-mouth; incessantly, with every indication of excitement, its
-gill-covers open and close, and take the lion's share of the water.
-
-It is impossible for her to bear this suffocation any longer; she must
-have air; and in ungovernable rage she begins to lash out with her
-tail. Now it is she who takes the upper hand, and pushes the hog-backed
-one before her through the water.
-
-Thus the combat continues. Now it is Grim who has the mastery, and
-shakes her opponent so that the perch's tail slaps her weakly on the
-cheeks, and fetches her blow after blow upon the back of her neck. Now
-it is the Rasper's turn to use Grim as a ferule, running her against
-stones and water-plants on the bottom, and whirling her round.
-
-But no matter how much they exert themselves, it is without result;
-they do not succeed in getting away from one another.
-
-Faint and dead-beat, they fall over on their sides. The blood in their
-red gills scarcely circulates, their strength is ebbing, and there is
-no longer any question of either being _leader_. They only take it in
-turns now to splash a little with their tails and try to right
-themselves.
-
-Grim, who is lying with her gills outside in the free water, is still
-alive and in possession of all her senses, but the Rasper is half dead.
-
-Then they float up and drift over the surface of the water like dead
-fish.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Thunder is rolling over the lake.
-
-A scorching sun and oppressive heat have long foreboded the storm that
-is brewing, and now at last it has burst; the clouds and the water have
-met.
-
-The celestial salute begins rumbling and crackling a long way off in
-the farthest corner where the reed-forests rally round the mouth of the
-brook. The lightning ploughs long, white-glowing fibrous sparks out of
-the sombre, purple horizon, from which the showers come chasing and
-sweeping over the lake, casting dark, threatening shadows before them.
-
-Under the fringe of forest on the lee-side, where all the grebes have
-crept together, one of the "big birds" is lying at anchor. She is
-riding out the storm while the whirlwinds are playing touch over the
-deep water. She has no lines or fishing-tackle out; she knows well that
-all angling is in vain.
-
-The water seethes and boils on all sides; the grey troughs of the waves
-are full of bursting bubbles. Little slate-coloured showers dart about,
-and plough up the surface of the water like the scratching of a cat on
-the skin; they dash themselves against the reedy margin and the edge of
-the wood, cutting broad lanes through them.
-
-All the fish have left the shallow water for the depths where they can
-lie far enough below the surface to escape the movement of the waves.
-Only the sheat-fish, the old water-hyena, is out roaming.
-
-The wild weather puts life into Oa; it brings her great opportunities.
-The fish cannot see in the rough water, they are thrown out of their
-course, at one moment jumbled together, then separated; and one and
-another come to grief. It is corpse-weather today. The angry waves stir
-up carrion from the bottom, or carry it out from bridge and bank. She
-always gets so hungry in stormy weather, and feels as if she must go to
-the surface for air.
-
-Feeling her way with her sensitive barbels, she glides out of her hole
-on the east side of the submarine mountain slope. Like a huge eel she
-wriggles up to the surface, where she lies in wait, slowly drifting
-with the current.
-
-Grim's white belly is not turned down now. The colour that makes the
-fish look one with the water would then have hidden her well enough for
-any one looking up from below. Now her flecked sides and black back
-make a distinct stripe in the water.
-
-A cunning expression comes into Oa's little eyes. The queer fish with
-two tails attracts her.
-
-The storm is abating; the last heavy shower is over. A patch of blue
-sky peeps out like a smiling eye between the frayed, swollen clouds.
-The lake sinks to rest, and even the pennons of the rushes hang loosely
-from their stalks; but in the distance can be heard the low rumbling of
-another storm.
-
-The boat takes advantage of the lull, and is on her way home.
-
-Oa, hearing the swish of her bow, has only time to make a few hasty
-snaps at the big perch's already swollen belly; her thick, fleshy lips
-are still pulling at the Rasper's intestines as she slowly dives down
-into deep water.
-
-The gulls and terns, which have begun to gather about the spot, are
-filled with renewed hope, and swoop down upon their prey with
-vociferous cries. Involuntarily the angler's attention is attracted to
-them.
-
-He takes out his glasses, then rows nearer; and in another moment he
-has the two fish in his landing-net.
-
-What a haul! A pike that has gorged itself on a giant perch! And it can
-only just have happened, for as soon as he has them in the boat he puts
-his nose to them and smells that they are fresh.
-
-The perch, it is true, looks rather poorly, but that is probably
-because the gulls have been at him already; and he carefully begins to
-release it, and is greatly pleased when he discovers that the big,
-voracious pike, which is quite lively, is one of his marked fish.
-
-Grim is furious, and tries to bite and snap while the happy angler
-makes a guess at her weight by swinging the landing-net up and down in
-his hands. Ten pounds at the very lowest! No throwing this one back
-again!
-
-So she was once more in man's power, between his fingers and nails. The
-light made her eyes prick and smart, the dry air stopped the course of
-her blood and her scales rose in terror and pain. For the third time
-she was as it were in the heron's throat!
-
-Then at last she awoke, her sight returned and the breath to her red
-gills; her brain became clear, and she no longer felt that
-uncomfortable pressure on the back of her neck. Life was once more
-coursing through her veins.
-
-She was in water, and with a stroke of her tail she made for the
-bottom. Oh! She had run her nose against a "stone!" She turned away and
-tried to go to one side, but there was another stone; there were stones
-all round her.
-
-The fisherman had put her into the well of his boat. She would be all
-right there--for the present!
-
-The well was full of small fish, which at her appearance immediately
-crowded together in a corner. She scowled at them, but although her
-stomach was empty, she felt no desire to eat. She remained perfectly
-still in the darkest corner of the well, and took note in her own way
-of what went on around her--the angler's tread on the planks of the
-boat, his rattling with the oars and gear, his shouts and hailing of
-other sportsmen gliding past, fastened themselves in her memory. Now
-and again a "bushy plant" came down and waved its stalks and leaves
-about her head. She wanted to get away from the bush, and started with
-a stroke of her tail, but she ran straight into the landing-net. She
-could not tear the bushy plant, its numerous thick tendrils were so
-absurdly strong; and it increased her suspicion and gave her fresh
-experience.
-
-Deep down, Oa follows the boat and listens to the ripple of the water
-against the keeled breast of the great "swimming bird." The old hyena,
-who had fed on the carrion of the lake for more than fifty years, knew
-all about the fishermen. With her little blinking, bronze-coloured
-eyes, that lay floating at the sides of her head, right out where the
-nostrils are generally placed in mammals, she gives careful attention
-to the refuse that the fisherman throws out when he cleans the dead
-perch.
-
-She dares not venture up to the surface. The sun is shining again, and
-there is no archipelago of water-lily leaves under which she can hide
-her head. She must wait patiently until her perquisites descend.
-
-She also hears the splashing of the bird, and shouts and strange thumps
-on the boat-planks; and she keeps her blue-black pupils fixed
-expectantly upon the great dark shadow up there.
-
-Who knows, some day perhaps a young one might drop out!
-
-As the angler neared the shore he lifted the lid of the well, and stood
-rejoicing over his catch. He saw the pike throw up her head, and was
-glad to find her still as lively as ever.
-
-And to think that Heaven should at last reward him for his magnanimity!
-For the mark on the dorsal fin showed distinctly that this fish had
-been in his hands before.
-
-Grim saw glimpses of the open water from which the dark land-shadows,
-in the form of the sides of the boat, shut her off. It must be a ditch
-she had got into, a pool; such mishaps had befallen her before on her
-annual wedding-tours up in narrow channels and bogs.
-
-Well then, she knew what to do, and she crouched in a corner, where she
-lay awaiting her opportunity.
-
-The angler should have replaced the lid before taking his usual nip. As
-it was, he was standing quietly leaning back with crooked arm, when
-suddenly, with a tremendous leap, Grim sprang out of the well and over
-the side of the boat, and with a splash disappeared into the lake.
-
-"Funny thing, very funny!" said a traveller a little later in the
-railway-carriage, to whom the angler had wrathfully related his story.
-
-But the angler himself saw nothing funny in it at all.
-
-
-
-
-VIII: THE ANGLER'S END
-
-
-It was so natural for Grim to be once more splashing freely in the
-lake; it was so natural for her to be feeding on roach again. She
-should have learned a lesson from her adventure in the air with the
-man, but the qualifications were lacking.
-
-Her senses, and her power of discrimination, however, had become
-keener, and she grew more timid and watchful in regard to splashing and
-noise; indeed, she quite lost her appetite when she was frightened.
-
-The time was past when she would confidently approach the shadow of a
-boat, she was exceedingly cautious now when she saw the "great bird" on
-the water.
-
-By this time she weighs about eighteen pounds, and measures the length
-of a grown man's leg from hip to heel; her dorsal fin measures more
-than two hand-breadths, and it would take a large hand to span her
-back.
-
-She loves peace and quiet, and feels very irritable under the influence
-of others.
-
-On the approach of storm and bad weather, which she perceives a long
-time in advance, she generally retires into deep water, where the noise
-of the waves cannot reach her. She feels indisposed and ill, and
-remains motionless in her watery lair. Day after day she stays thus,
-without feeling hunger, or any desire for action. She sleeps and lets
-all her nerves and muscles rest; only her gills and fins keep working
-mechanically.
-
-At such times the angler may try to tempt her with spoon or other
-artificial bait, or with live fish, but she will not touch them! One
-tempting little decoy-fish after another may whisk past her nose, but
-both palate and stomach easily withstand the temptations that are
-placed before her surfeited eyes.
-
-But when the weather calms down and the waves once more grow less, she
-comes to life again, and is then well and rested. The storm has cleared
-her blood; she needs food and exercise, and is biting madly.
-
-One afternoon the angler is sitting in his boat with all his rods and
-lines out; he is smoking a pipe and listening to the loud "karr-karr"
-of the grebes.
-
-As usual he is alone in the boat.
-
-He has anchored off his favourite bank, a narrow reef which, in the
-shelter of the wood, runs far out into the lake. This fishing-ground,
-which in windy weather is the richest in the lake, he has discovered
-himself.
-
-It was hard work getting out to it! The gusts of wind came down upon
-him unexpectedly as he bounded over the water in his little
-green-painted boat. Suddenly the lake assumed a wilder aspect, the
-great wave-mountains were broken up into small pieces, and the valleys
-were filled with wrinkles. The boat quivered, and the angler started
-and let the main-sail down, while the black wind from the frayed clouds
-raged under the heavens.
-
-Now the weather is clearing, however, and the lake is calming
-down--real fishing weather, thinks the angler, and he hums the old
-angler's song:
-
- "When the wind is in the east, 'Tis neither good for man nor beast;
-When the wind is in the south, It blows the bait in the fishes' mouth."
-
-The terns, with their long forked tails and black caps rise and fall in
-the air around him. They are good Samaritans to all the half-dead bait
-he from time to time throws overboard. The poor little ill-used things
-hastily make for the shadow of the boat or take up a position beside a
-floating weed. They want to hide because they feel weak; they do not
-want to go down into deep water to Oa. Then the terns snap them up, and
-put them down their little red throats.
-
-Three or four of them are pursuing, with shrieks and snarls, another
-which is flying away with a little bleak, like a piece of white stick
-in its jaws. It reminds the fisherman of a heron he once shot at, and
-which sent out a shower of such half-dead little fish.
-
-At that moment he has a bite at one of his lines. The line runs off the
-reel at a great pace, and the rod, which rests on the row-lock, but
-with its thick end wedged under a board at the bottom of the boat,
-bends like a flag-leaf and dips its point down into the water.
-
-He seizes the rod and lifts it. The line is running out at full speed.
-He carefully checks it, making the resistance stronger and stronger, so
-as to prevent the fish from breaking the line with a sudden jerk.
-
-Grim has taken the bait, and is now darting about with it. She had been
-hungry after three days' storm and wind, and had therefore rushed
-blindly at the lure. Alas, it is another of those prickly fish, she
-notices at once, one of those confounded tit-bits that are only to be
-looked at, but which neither teeth nor throat are ever glad to deal
-with; and she opens her mouth and chokes and spits.
-
-She gets rid of the fish she had snatched; she sees it, half dead and
-with long rents in its sides from her teeth, floating on its side with
-a reddish yellow eye turned up towards her through the water. But the
-prickly thorn that she took in at the same time is fixed in her jaw.
-
-She darts hither and thither, turning and twisting. Now she is down in
-deep water, rubbing her wounded mouth upon the bottom, now she darts,
-with the bubbles in her wake rising above her, round a clump of
-water-lilies.
-
-The angler sees an island of leaves as big as a dining-table disappear.
-
-Then she is off again. The reel shrieks and hums as if a giant
-grasshopper sat chirping in it. All at once, Grim leaps out of the
-water high into the air, so that her golden, black-streaked body, with
-the panther-like spots and the trickling water-drops, casts a gleam
-over the lake.
-
-Never had the good man seen such a fish! The very waves that it raises
-as it returns to the water, breaking the surface like a submarine, show
-him that it is--as he is accustomed to express it--"one of the good
-old-fashioned sort." He continues to gaze open-mouthed at the place
-where it disappeared, while a flurry of rings spreads out in all
-directions.
-
-A little later a whirlpool appears on the seething water, and he
-catches a glimpse of a dorsal fin with the hinder point missing. Then
-the old fisherman rejoices. A marked fish, one of his oldest, perhaps
-his biggest!
-
-He winds in, lets the line run out, and winds in again. His big body is
-perspiring with his exertions, and he has to stand with his legs wide
-apart and his feet firmly fixed whenever the mighty fish gives one of
-its sudden jerks.
-
-While this is going on there are bites on two of the perch-lines, and
-the angler can see they are not small fish either. The lines, which are
-lying loose over the gunwale, run out at a great pace, so that the
-winders hop and dance about at the bottom of the boat. One of them is
-jerked over the edge, so that fish, hooks, and line are lost; the other
-he tries to make sure of by setting his foot upon it.
-
-Like the back of a cat about to spring, the rod bends under its
-floundering burden. The old man has to keep on incessantly slacking and
-tightening the line; hoping to tire out the fish that was dragging his
-rod from one side to the other.
-
-He notes the smallest movement of his captive. It is still in full
-vigour, and there are many water-plants and stalks in the way. Will he
-be able to draw it from the deep water with his fine, fragile line?
-
-Suddenly Grim turns and darts in beneath the boat with such force that
-the rod must either break or follow her. The angler chooses to let it
-go in the hope of picking it up on the other side.
-
-It happens as he expected: the rod appears, floats up; he leans over
-and reaches it.
-
-The fight and nervous excitement recommence--the quick, exciting
-contest between man and fish.
-
-The wind plays its autumn hymn upon the rushes, and ruffles the water
-between the yellow-spotted water-lily leaves, while the sun's rays, as
-they come and go, light flaming torches among the trees and reeds. They
-gleam, they sparkle, they flash; and great, heavy, September clouds
-drift over the lake.
-
-At last the shrewd fisherman has the upper hand, and cautiously draws
-his captive close up to the boat. He bends down, with his knees upon
-the gunwale, and leans over with the landing-net, in his right hand.
-
-Grim suddenly finds herself close to the great "water-bird," and gives
-a violent jerk. The fisherman reaches out with his arm, and the upper
-part of his body as far as they will go; but he forgets that he is in a
-boat and on unsafe ground, loses his balance, and falls overboard with
-a splash, upsetting the boat as he does so.
-
-No one sees the accident, and his heavy waders drag him quickly down.
-
-Grim darts this way and that, winding the line round him and drawing
-him to the bottom. And then, among the rocks of the reef, the line
-breaks; the angler's body drifts in among the reeds.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Towards evening the sky becomes overcast and the troubled water looks
-thick and muddy. Little waves leap up, stand for a moment at their
-height as if trying to keep their balance, and then give up the attempt
-and roll down.
-
-A solitary little sunbeam still now and again brightens up all the
-grey-veiled colours, and then the water takes the hues of a
-fallow-deer, and the water-lily leaves become floating patches of
-rainbow.
-
-In the muddy valley between the bottom-springs, Oa is beginning to
-move. She blinks her cunning eyes, and their blue-black pupils become
-large and round. Then she sets out on a nocturnal expedition across the
-lake, steals into the rocky grottos of the cloister-cells, and finds a
-new hiding-place beneath the wreck of a boat--a new arrival. With her
-snout just in the rent between the bottom and the gunwale, she lies
-like a dog in its kennel, until night closes in and all is dark and
-silent.
-
-Then she lets herself slowly drift along the edge to the reedy borders
-of the lake, taking every drowned dog or cat as gifts from the
-Creator's hand.
-
-Everything that has no longer the power to keep above the water, all
-that is dead and drifts about, belongs to the crayfish and to her.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The Nipper had already found the body when Oa arrived.
-
-
-
-
-IX: THE WEDDING FESTIVAL
-
-
-Spring has come, and the pike are about to spawn. Grim, the great
-she-pike, has been lying motionless for days among the bottom
-vegetation, waiting the call of the sun. And now it has come. One
-morning it suddenly bursts through and lights up the forest of stalks
-in the yellow, weedy margin. In the little open spaces between the
-tufts there is life and movement, and a sound of splashing everywhere;
-dark scaly bodies rise slowly out of the water. Then the young fish
-gambol, their fins beating like wings in the sunshine.
-
-Grim's cold heart, too, feels the spring, and it warms her icy blood.
-She swims about, full of gentler feelings, she notes an attraction in
-the shallow water close inshore, the grass of the ditches, and the
-sheltered pools of the marsh. And suddenly she recollects her bridal
-chamber, far up at the end of a broad, sun-warmed ditch fringed with
-flowering willow and drooping birch, with flickering sunlight and
-shadow, and the splashing of lively wooers.
-
-Spring comes on apace, the sun's rays piercing ever deeper into the
-water, where the plants shoot and rise out of the ooze with herculean
-strength, mass themselves, expand, and throw wide arms abroad. From the
-stubbly reed-bed rise fresh stems; and all the fallen willow wands that
-are floating about put forth leaves and take root.
-
-Soon the banks grow green, and in the sour mud of the creek, where in a
-short time water-soldiers and duck-weed will form hanging islands,
-brown toads and green frogs are beginning to bark and croak.
-
-All kinds of fish are gambolling with joy and delight; and at last
-comes Oa, the old recluse. Without evil intentions she approaches the
-bank, and in the flaming dawn she lays her hundred thousand eggs among
-the thronging mare's-tails and grasses. But there is no bridegroom near
-her, for none exists. Bleak and little roach revel in her roe; and when
-she has spawned her heart once more grows cold, and she sinks back into
-the deep water, gloomy and sullen as before.
-
-Grim becomes more and more eager. Her deep-blue pupils, surrounded with
-a brass-coloured ring, shine like sapphires in an amber setting; the
-clayey tones along her sides and flanks change to green, and her
-gill-covers take on a deep orange hue.
-
-Little by little she feels herself attracted by the numerous eager
-little male pike that incessantly frisk about her, and are already
-resplendent in their magnificent golden bridal attire. She receives
-with delight the attentions of the one that for the moment pleases her
-most; towards the others, and especially those whom she does _not_
-like, she is capricious in the extreme, and will eat them if she has an
-opportunity.
-
-As her spawning-time draws near, she grows heavy and swollen with her
-roe, and at the same time more irritable and uncertain in temper. She
-eats nothing, and thinks only of swimming over a flat grassy bottom,
-where she can rub her distended belly over the soft grass, arching her
-back like a dog in the consciousness of well-being.
-
-The lake, whose banks are for the most part steep and reedy, never
-tempts her when she is about to spawn. She prefers to make her way up
-the brook to a number of large flooded peat-bogs and meadows.
-
-She generally reaches them by a round-about way. At one place where the
-brook makes a bend and forms swampy ground with miles of reed-forest
-along its banks, a broad belt of rushes runs through some low-lying
-meadow-land for some distance. The belt twists and turns, and all the
-year through, withered rushes lift thin, seedless tassels above the
-rest. In summer it is grown over, and is little more than a deep
-bottomless ditch; but in spring, a sudden thaw will swell it to a wide,
-full channel.
-
-Here, under flowering blackthorn and budding alder-trees, the waters of
-the bog and the lake are mingled.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-One cloudy, misty night, Grim, followed by three ardent male pike, the
-largest not half her size, makes her way through the ditch. Other
-suitors have already appeared; the great migration before spawning is
-in full swing.
-
-In and out she moves, among the shallows and banks of water-plants.
-Sometimes there is only a channel in mid-stream to follow, sometimes
-she has to go through a long, narrow passage beneath an over-hanging
-bank, until she reaches open, submarine plains in broad creeks. Her
-ardour and determination to overcome all difficulties help her,
-notwithstanding mud and a rotting dam.
-
-At last she is through, and swimming about at her ease.
-
-The marsh water shines golden black, with a tinge of bronze. Grim is
-never weary of rubbing against the soft, muddy peat.
-
-Half-decayed remains of dead stalks form a network all over the great
-cushion at the bottom, and fresh remains of cell-tissue and organic
-things just dead are always on their way down. But from the depth new
-life rises once more; the sun is ever setting free tiny, green, mossy
-balls of slime that lie moored, as it were, to a single fine umbilical
-cord, and twirl and sway down on the bottom. All at once the cord
-breaks, and they rise through the water in a cluster like bubbles, and
-expand into large, fringed umbels.
-
-The willow-wands on the knolls are in flower, and behind the points of
-land the coots are quarrelling, while the snipe fly round and round in
-the air, and let the wind play upon their feather-harps.
-
-Then comes the day when she is ready to spawn. A peculiar, and to her
-inexplicable, desire to bury herself in the rushes and reed-stubble
-fills her, and she likes to run her big body far up among the grass and
-sedges, where she can scarcely swim or turn. With joy she feels the
-thrill right up her flanks.
-
-She has never been very sensitive, least of all when it did not concern
-herself; and now she looks unmoved upon the excited males as they snap
-and butt at one another. Unfortunately she has no appetite, or she
-would have eaten the most tempting of them.
-
-The spawning soon begins, and the fish leap one about another in a
-cluster; Grim loses all consciousness of her surroundings, while she
-sheds her golden stream of five hundred thousand clear, yellow eggs.
-
-No sooner, however, is this accomplished than she comes to her senses,
-and suddenly feels an overpowering hunger after her tender abandonment.
-Her gently waving tail-fin turns stiff as a wind-filled sail, and with
-a quick, powerful turn she slips her spiked jaws over the nearest beau,
-and slowly transfers him to the vacant place within.
-
-Over an hour the wedding-breakfast lasts, and then the great lady swims
-off complacently with a flap of her late lamented bridegroom's tail
-still sticking out of her mouth.
-
-Later on, on her way back through the road of rushes down to the lake,
-her blood is cold and her will dormant.
-
-The spring was unusually dry; the water from the thaw had sunk in at
-once, and the brook received little additional water; and when Grim
-reached the old, half-rotten dam, she found it had been replaced by a
-new one.
-
-Here she remained together with a number of other fish that gradually
-collected at the dam, and tried to get through. For two days she was
-unable to get either forwards or backwards; several times she attempted
-a leap, but, without success. Then she changed her mind, and went back
-to the marsh while there was still time.
-
-She was shut in!
-
-
-
-
-X: IN THE MARSH
-
-
-A wide stretch of marshland, thickly covered with vegetation, and
-difficult of access, with numerous large pools, full of tussocks and
-rushes. Century-old peat-pits ran side by side, connected with little
-watercourses or half-overgrown ditches.
-
-Willow and cotton-grass covered the hillocks, and naze and headland ran
-out into the black water, in which were islands, sometimes fixed,
-sometimes floating.
-
-Whole little floating fields of frog-bit and pond-weed would shoot out
-from a bank, and completely cover the bronze-coloured water; green and
-smiling they looked, and tempted the foot as a trustworthy bridge; but
-at a single touch with the tip of one's boot, the whole mass quivered
-and trembled.
-
-Down in the deep water where the black horse-leeches pushed their way
-along, and monster larv� with bent back and open jaws stood motionless,
-watching for prey among the refuse, grew the oddest water-forests. They
-were neither hard nor stiff; their stems consisted of slender stalks
-held up by the water.
-
-There were bluish green, luxuriant "fir-forests," and whole groves of
-palm-like bushes with red flowers upon long stalks. At the edges there
-were climbing plants, which formed a matted web of stalks and fibres,
-and bulged out in swelling clouds.
-
-What a curling and bending in everything down there! What pliant
-shapes! And everywhere there were little, fat, pug-like bastard carp,
-dozing and opening their mouths without ceasing, making double chins in
-their enjoyment, and rolling their eyes ecstatically.
-
-From the deep, clear lake with its shining waters, Grim had now come to
-these low, swampy banks. At first the change was somewhat sudden; but
-she possessed the ability of her kind to adapt herself rapidly to her
-circumstances.
-
-Nor did she at first have much difficulty in obtaining food. There were
-young bream and eels, as well as the "pugs" to go on with; but by
-degrees, as she grew bigger and the years went on, she had to make
-herself more and more omnivorous in order to exist. She was living, in
-a way, like a whale in a lake.
-
-In the winter especially things were difficult. In the lake, which had
-been her home for more than thirty years, it had been easy to manage.
-It was too big to be frozen over; even in the severest cold the bottom
-springs kept large areas open. But this was not the case with the
-marsh, for here the "air," during a long frost, became very close. The
-water took up the marsh-gas from the decaying remains of animals and
-plants on the bottom, and could not give it off and renew itself with
-oxygen.
-
-Grim had then to go where flags and knotgrass pricked tiny, almost
-invisible holes in the ice. She found them by the gleams of light, and
-noticed that she could breathe freely at such places.
-
-With this exception she generally kept at the bottom during the cold
-season, burying herself in the warm, fallen vegetation. There she lay
-and slept, her blood circulated more slowly, and for days together she
-required no nourishment.
-
-But the torpid state was not complete; now and then she had to move,
-and then she satisfied her hunger with mussels and snails, and would
-also examine the mud-shafts of the peat-pits.
-
-Here in the muddy labyrinths she came upon tench, olive-green fish,
-with black back. Their scales were very small, and their whole body
-covered with a thick layer of slime. They were coarse fish, with thick,
-leathery fins. Formerly she could never endure them, and had made use
-of them chiefly as a kind of healing remedy when she lived in the lake.
-When her mouth was full of pricks and scratches from fish-hooks, she
-would go into the mud to consult them and to get a healing plaster
-stuck upon her wounded snout by rubbing it against their slimy sides;
-but now, when hunger sharpened her appetite, she had to turn her former
-benefactors to another use, and get as much as possible out of the
-consultation. She therefore ate them with pleasure.
-
-In the summer she seldom touched them, but fattened herself on
-everything that came in her way. She would take a snake that swam
-across, a frog, a mouse; and if a water-rat made its appearance, she
-shot up under it, and sucked it in at one mouthful.
-
-In this way she got on fairly well for a few years.
-
-One year, however, there was an unusually dry summer, and in order to
-find sufficient water she had to move from peat-hole to peat-hole, and
-often had to live for weeks at a time in the pools left in the deeper
-hollows. Fortunately for her, as the water sank, all the inhabitants of
-the bog gradually came together in these basins. She came across perch
-and carp; and eels, leeches and toads were also, like herself,
-imprisoned here, until the rain should once more bring an abundance of
-water.
-
-She continued to develop, but otherwise than before; ferocity and
-cruelty were replaced by cunning and ingenuity. And like all the other
-pike in the bog, she soon learned to swing herself over the ridges from
-one hole to another, and even to cross land for short distances.
-
-She had the choice between dying of hunger and finding an expedient.
-
-It seemed as if that passage, long ago, from the flying heron's beak to
-the smooth surface of the water had hardened her gills and enabled them
-to bear the strong, drying oxygen of the air for a longer time; for she
-often ventured over ridges and peat-dams wider than a high-road.
-
-When she could bear her hunger no longer, she ran herself aground and
-up into the grass, and then, bending herself together, leaped on in the
-direction of the new water. As soon as she was in the dry air, she
-could feel which way she ought to take; the neighbourhood of water
-affected her sensitive skin and drew her the shortest way. Everything
-flickered in a golden mist before her eyes, as she crept on, bending
-and leaping.
-
-It was in the early hours of morning, when the grass was wet with dew,
-that she made these expeditions overland.
-
-On one of these occasions she got into a large, deep pit, where the
-crayfish population that annually migrated from the lake had their
-stronghold. All over the perpendicular, blackened sides of the
-peat-cutting living crayfish claws opened at her.
-
-Day after day for six months she went hunting here, and had enough to
-do with making her way into the hard, perpendicular walls in which the
-nippers had their holes. She knew from her experience in the lake that
-the crayfish could neither steer nor change their course when, with
-flapping tail, they darted backwards through the water, and were
-therefore easily caught when once she had hunted them out.
-
-Only one ancient, mussel-scarred fellow, coal-black all over, and with
-one large and one very tiny claw, eluded her most ardent endeavours. It
-sat in a rocky hole, far in, its spear-armed head with the stalked eyes
-resting pensively upon its two unequal claws.
-
-Once or twice it happened that she was aroused from her torpor at night
-by feeling a firm, hard grasp upon her body, and she darted round in a
-circle like a dog after its tail; but the Nipper always knew when to
-let go.
-
-One day she was also obliged to leave _this_ hole. She managed to break
-down the ridge between her and a neighbouring pit, where she enjoyed a
-few months' ease and comfort. Here she passed the winter, and cleared
-the mud of every tench, every leech, and every snail.
-
-When spring came she ate everything that came in her way. At this
-season frogs and toads made their way in multitudes to the pools. The
-frogs lay croaking and croaking, and the toads barked and growled, all
-of them full of love and delight, and therefore an easy prey.
-
-Later on she revelled in frogs' eggs, and swallowed great quantities of
-the fat, black yolks. Sometimes, too, she could feast on some long
-threads that were stretched about the reed-stubble; they were the eggs
-of the big toads, threaded like beads upon a string, and laid in the
-water to hatch.
-
-On the whole she was glad of the frogs and toads; they kept on
-reappearing, afterwards too, when the little tadpoles began to swarm.
-
-She could no longer afford to be fastidious; she had to take
-everything, and not let a crumb be wasted.
-
-During the summer nights she was busy at the surface. The big, heavy
-moths, which often, in thoughtlessness or carelessness, settled on the
-water or on some floating straw, became her booty. She ate them, wings,
-straw and all, like a hungry man trying to satisfy his appetite with
-prawns.
-
-No wonder that the teeth in her huge mouth gradually developed into
-something like the whalebone in the mouth of a whale
-
-But a stomach with the cubic capacity of a _hectolitre_ needed more
-than this!
-
-The bog is veiled in a steaming mist, which hangs like cloud-lakes over
-the reeds. The moisture penetrates everywhere, and trembling drops hang
-from everything; and the thousands upon thousands of spiders' webs show
-up in all their marvellous workmanship.
-
-Thickets of willow and drooping birches cast black shadows all along
-the ridges and banks, and large, thick swarms of gnats hang silently in
-the air. Only a leaping fish or a bathing swallow disturbs the deep
-morning stillness.
-
-The great bog-snail, with its horse-like head and bat-like ears, has
-come out of its shell and is feeling everything that comes within its
-reach, groping its way along, and then with a jerk dragging its spiral
-shell after it. Now it fastens itself to a little dead fish and sucks
-out its eyes, and finally comes to rest upon the broad leaf of an iris,
-the point of its shell still trembling with the movement of the water.
-
-A boat-bug that has grown tired, and drawn in its oars, also composes
-itself to rest. Slowly it sinks to the bottom of the water, where it
-settles down comfortably and with discrimination among caddis-worms,
-planorbis, and young salamanders. Even a water-beetle that is in a
-hurry and, with its head in the mud, is fussing about everywhere, is
-roughly tossed aside by the powerful palpi.
-
-Up on the clear surface swims the grebe. Its back is dark, the head,
-with the beautiful ruffle round its neck, poised high; but breast and
-belly are a glistening slivery white. It never goes on shore, never
-even ventures into shallow water; for it must be where it can dive
-without hindrance. On its back it carries its tiny young, holding its
-wings protectingly round them as they lie buried in its back-feathers
-as in a cushioned hollow.
-
-The male swims beside them and dives after food, which he puts into the
-gaping mouths of the young as they chirp and flap their little stumpy
-wings.
-
-Grim knows the divers well, and they know her--or so, at least, they
-think.
-
-This morning, however, in her insatiable hunger, she sets her teeth
-into a webbed foot and upsets the little boat, so that all the young
-ones fall out. With the greatest possible speed she gulps down the
-whole flock, and then, more or less appeased, goes to the bottom,
-having learnt feathers do not disagree with her at all.
-
-Until next morning she found herself just as hungry again.
-
-Then she was fortunate enough to gain fresh experience about feathers.
-
-In the early dawn, while the rays from the rising sun shed their
-peculiar colours over the bog, and made it shine with green and yellow,
-with purple and indigo, she made a dash at a fish on the surface,
-without suspecting that up in the air above her there was a winged
-rival, who also desired the booty.
-
-The tern swooped headlong downwards as Grim leaped headlong upwards,
-and the mouths of the two spoilers closed at the same moment over the
-little fish. Grim, however, opened her mouth the wider, and closed it
-with the greater force, and she bit with a voracious violence as great
-as if she were about to eat the carcass of an ox.
-
-She got the fish and the tern's head in the same mouthful, noticed that
-she was well laden, and backed downwards, drawing the bird with her
-into deep water, where she swallowed her strange prey.
-
-What an immense blessing fish with feathers were! For several days she
-felt so thoroughly satisfied!
-
-From that time she considered every creature upon the surface of the
-water as her lawful booty. No sooner did a wild duck drop on to the
-water in its evening flight, than Grim darted up after it from her hole
-in the mud. At intervals of a day she took both the grebes and cleared
-the creeks of coots and a couple of young storks that had come for the
-purpose of learning to fish.
-
-But still the craving for food allowed her no rest. She had to be
-constantly extending her domain and finding new territory.
-
-See the marsh now that July has come!--July, luxuriant, mature, with
-clouds for hips and swelling breasts, and a sun that seems weary of
-journeying. Like sea-birds that have no air under their wings for their
-flight, come puffs of wind, throwing themselves into peat-bogs and
-marsh-pools. The air is one continuous drowsy hum of flies and gnats;
-and the reed-warbler is in full voice.
-
-Grim lies dozing in the tepid water, and sees the world above her
-indistinctly and uncertainly as through thick grass. She only notices
-that out of the shining blue up there, there now and then appears a
-little dark shadow. It comes down suddenly, pauses for an instant as it
-touches the water, and is gone again.
-
-It is something alive, she guesses--something for _her_!
-
-Wherefore she disguises her torpedo-body, and awaits her opportunity.
-
-A moment later the vegetation trembles, the thick masses of sphagnum
-moss bulge out like clouds, a storm rises on the bottom. The heap of
-moss lifts, the surface of the water rocks and is suddenly broken by a
-splash as Grim darts up at the very moment that a swallow, with a
-graceful swing, skims a gnat off the water.
-
-The surface grows calm, the bubbles float off and burst before reaching
-the bank, while Grim sinks back into her bed with the bird on its way
-through her gullet.
-
-The water-beetles and gnats were jumbled together in one muddy mass.
-
-Thus the struggle for food was daily sharpening her wits.
-
-Formerly she had resorted to the islands of water-lilies to catch fish;
-now there _were_ no fish, but experience had taught her that here the
-birds came to drink. With her nose just under the margin of the leaf,
-she stood ready; and she captured many a water-wagtail, now the white
-with the moon-silvered feathers, now the yellow--yellow as newly-opened
-marsh-marigolds.
-
-It sometimes happened, too, that she got a wood-pigeon, or a peewit, or
-a snipe; and once she took an old, full-grown heron. She seized it by
-the leg and backed with it, drawing it out into deep water, where it
-drowned.
-
-But the heron tried repeatedly to spit her upon his beak, and in this
-way she lost one of her eyes.
-
-
-
-
-XI: TERROR
-
-
-In the largest of the old peat-holes with their dark brown water, a
-single large fish could be seen, in bright sunshine, lying motionless
-among the rushes under the bank.
-
-From time immemorial it had lived in this bog-pool, and seldom left its
-waters. A wild duck, carrying pike's roe among its feathers, had
-planted it there long ago.
-
-_Terror_ was not quite so big as Grim, but was longer and leaner, with
-the head and teeth of a shark.
-
-Many a time had she and Grim fallen out with one another, and fought
-viciously in their struggle for food. The scars left by their bites lay
-in deep furrows down their flanks, and were covered with colourless
-scales arranged in spirals and circles.
-
-Of late, however, they had wisely avoided one another, keeping each to
-her own large pool.
-
-During her first year in the bog, Grim had been followed by several
-powerful male fish, and a number of younger males swam round about. The
-second year there were only a few of them left, and in the spring, when
-the heavens again began to give light and warmth, both she and Terror
-had been obliged to finish their spawning alone.
-
-Many a happy bridegroom had slipped down their throats; and now,
-between them, they had cleared the whole bog.
-
-Languid and emaciated, they had now gone into deep water to rest, until
-the desire for good and abundant nourishment suddenly became intense,
-and inflamed their courage and foolhardiness.
-
-One morning, before daylight had penetrated into the water, Grim
-catches a glimpse through it of the swarthy belly of the old fish.
-Driven by hunger, she has come a little way out of her hole, and is now
-lurking at the edge of the vegetation just above.
-
-Large pieces of ice and slushy snow are drifting about in the pool, but
-along the banks and the edges of the tussocks, whither the spring has
-brought flocks of frolicsome peewits, the heat of the midday sun has
-already made open water and currents.
-
-Suddenly Grim is unpleasantly reminded of her rival's presence by
-seeing her orange-coloured flanks gleam as she makes a charge, and like
-a dart she shoots up. As they now meet, after their happily-accomplished
-delivery, they are both fully aware of the purpose of the meeting:
-they mean to devour one another.
-
-Fin by fin they set off, scowling maliciously at one another. Grim is
-close to the body of her rival, and as they move on she pushes her in
-over the edge of the reeds.
-
-During the winter the reeds have been cut, but the crooked-edge,
-sharp-pointed stumps are left standing just below the surface, like a
-stiff brush. The marsh-pike keeps getting her body over the brush,
-which with every movement tears her tail and belly, and all at once
-rouses her dull, sluggish nature out of its indifference. She blows up
-her gills and angrily extends her fins, while a thick shower of
-sparkling gold and silver scales whirls through the water to the
-bottom.
-
-She slips away from the reed-bed, and swift as lightning turns upon
-Grim, but the old pirate is not to be caught by a bog-trotter. She
-sacrifices half her dorsal fin, which is mercilessly torn into
-streamers down the spines.
-
-Then Grim takes a turn under Terror, dashes up from below with open
-mouth at her opponent, and fastens her teeth in her adversary's belly.
-Terror tries in vain to make use of her teeth. Again and again she
-makes the attempt, her saw-toothed jaws opening and closing with a
-snap. But Grim goes on shaking her, while shower after shower of scales
-flutter around them in the water.
-
-They roll over one another, the ice-floes break, and thousands of small
-crystals clink and tinkle. Now they are up in the slushy snow, where
-the dirty, yellow water seethes and bubbles round their lashing tails;
-now they disappear in a flickering zigzag down to the bottom.
-
-With the tenacity and energy with which Grim is always animated when
-after prey, she now wrestles with Terror. She pinches the unfortunate
-fish, tortures and worries her, and keeps it up without interruption.
-It is not the sort of battle to weary her. She holds her prey between
-her jaws all the time; it strengthens her purpose, lights the fire in
-her eye, and encourages her to unceasing perseverance.
-
-The greater the opponent, the greater is her reward and satisfaction.
-Her stomach desires what tongue and teeth already feel so near; she
-_must_ succeed in getting this huge morsel--as she once did with her
-little brother--to lie unresistingly in her mouth, so that she can have
-the pleasure of turning it about and begin to swallow it.
-
-Terror twists and turns in her efforts to get a bite; but Grim has been
-fortunate in taking hold so far forward that there is no room left for
-her to bite. Terror has only her tail-end to strike with, and with it
-she sweeps up clouds of mud sufficient to hide an elephant.
-
-The battle lasts for more than three hours, and all the ice in the pool
-is broken into fragments. By this time Grim's miry opponent is
-exhausted: success has crowned the efforts of the old fratricide, as it
-has always done in this kind of contest, ever since she was the length
-of a darning-needle. Then in a trice she turns the harassed victim
-over, and suffocates her by wedging her head into her own throat. But
-it takes her four days to get Terror through the mouth of her draw-bag.
-At last she had a fish again that went some way!
-
-
-
-
-XII: GRIM DEVELOPS
-
-
-Grim was now about five feet long, and weighed something like fifty
-pounds. As with all pike that live in small lakes, her head had grown
-inordinately. Her daily fight for food necessitated constant use of her
-head-muscles, which had developed accordingly. In her mouth alone a
-wooden shoe could easily have been hidden.
-
-The old bright colours along her back and belly were now quite altered.
-The body vied in blackness with the evil-smelling mud of the bog, and
-broad, golden-bronze streaks shaded the dull sides. Out in the sunshine
-she had quite a rusty, coppery appearance.
-
-She was a mythical pike, one of those old-time fish about which the
-late lamented angler had told wonderful tales in his day. Even the
-regular mane of scales of a finger's length, from the back of the neck
-down over the pectoral fins, was not wanting.
-
-But her eye was evil, a mixture of yellow and green, cold and deceitful
-as the foam of the bog-waves; it always shone with a fierce hunger, and
-even on the rare occasions when the hunger was appeased, the expression
-of that eye was one of insatiable voracity.
-
-She has succeeded in clearing the bog-holes nearest to her own quarters
-of every frog, water-rat, and wild duckling; and she has eaten up all
-the swallows that have come to drink as they flew. Again she has had to
-travel a good way overland, until at last she has come to rest in a
-wild, wide pool, which she has never before visited.
-
-Here she has had a fresh, welcome success. She has overcome and
-swallowed another big, muddy specimen of a bog-pike, even heavier than
-Terror; the fellow had just bolted a smaller one of his own species,
-and in it lay a full-grown mallard.
-
-Food! Food!
-
-It is true she always felt her stomach rather heavy, for in the course
-of time she had got it paved with the most remarkable things. Besides
-various hooks and wire traces, there was a large key that once, in her
-youth, when she had been standing beneath one of the great water-birds,
-had come darting like a roach through the water. There was also a
-dessert-spoon acquired under similar circumstances, a plummet, and,
-lastly, a watch-chain, from the ill-fated angler's vest. All these had,
-however, become encysted, and were not for consumption; at the very
-most they were an aid to digestion!
-
-She has been a week over her last splendid catch.
-
-She makes another and another; but after a couple of months she has
-emptied this bog-pool too. What now, and whither?
-
-One evening she works her way in among flowering iris, club-rushes, and
-marsh-grass, and peers enviously up at the big dragon-flies that are
-chasing fat flies not an inch above her head. She grows hungrier than
-ever, and sets to work to devour black horse-leeches in place of eels,
-and the roots of certain water-plants, which she tries to persuade
-herself are worms.
-
-In the warm, still, summer evening, the shadows shoot from the banks
-and ridges, framing the blood-red sunset hues in ebony. Had there been
-but a few roach left, they would have been playing ducks and drakes
-over the smooth water.
-
-A reed just beside her moves, and from her hiding-place at the edge of
-the rushes she sees the reed-warbler flitting about up above. The
-crafty expression comes into her flat eye; she calculates her distance,
-and makes a spring.
-
-The first time the bird is too quick for her, but the next time her
-effort is crowned with success; and the third time she closes her jaws
-on the reed-warbler's foster-child, a large, red-eyed young cuckoo!
-
-Grim was an artist in her way, and had her own peculiar tricks. Since
-the day when she had leapt out of the angler's boat, she had developed
-into a regular flying-fish.
-
-Food! Food! The constant refrain both above water and below. To have
-something in the maw--to have _much_--as much as possible. Food! Food!
-
-The pool is very deep, with perpendicular, overgrown sides, save in one
-place where the peat had once been dragged up a slope, making a gradual
-transition from water to land. The stiff clay is covered with the
-foot-prints of cattle, and the herbage on the mounds round about is
-cropped.
-
-This is a watering-place.
-
-Often, when in a famished condition, a transport of hunger which makes
-her lash her tail-fin round madly in a ceaseless search for food, she
-has stopped suddenly at the sight of a pair of big, thick legs stirring
-up the mud. It is a grazing bull or heifer that has come to the
-watering-place, and has splashed out far enough to be able to feel cool
-water under its nose.
-
-One day when this occurred, the big-jointed legs and broad chest of the
-bull inspired Grim with hope, and her over-excited imagination began to
-conjure up the possibility of at last getting hold of something worth
-catching.
-
-She steals forward, and her obliquely-set eye, which can look upwards
-with such ease, fastens, as though cast in that position, upon the
-great horned head of an ox.
-
-She pushes on among the black cat's-tails, hidden under the long-ribbed
-fans of weed, until she is just in front of the drinking animal, and
-can see through the glimmering surface of the water the sucking, fleshy
-nose.
-
-At this she can no longer control her voracity. Where her stomach
-wills, her body must follow after. Her shrewdness may warn her, and
-experience urge her to caution, but in vain: when her stomach wills,
-she rushes into the fray.
-
-The ox throws up its head with such violence that Grim is dragged up
-with it halfway; but she does not relax her hold, and when she sinks
-back into deep water, she takes a large piece of the ox's snout with
-her.
-
-The marsh, with its miles of reed-beds, was a favourite haunt of game,
-for coolness in the midsummer heat, and for warmth in the winter cold.
-Here were peaceful spots to hide when chased by men with the report of
-guns and the barking of dogs. And Grim knew how to benefit by this
-abundance of game.
-
-Just as it had long been her way to snatch her prey by springing out of
-her element, so she now created a new means of support by lying in wait
-at the drinking-places like a crocodile.
-
-Several times she molested horses when watering, and on one occasion
-she bit off half the tongue of a poor calf.
-
-One afternoon a roe-deer comes down with its young. The day is hot, and
-they run far in, one of them, unable to stop, going in up to its chest.
-Grim darts up, seizes it by the body, overturns it, and then drags it
-out with her.
-
-Another day a small dog suffers the same fate. It is caught by the
-fore-leg and drawn down, while a storm of rings spreads out on all
-sides.
-
-All she had dreamed of in earliest youth has been realized; no prey is
-now too large for her.
-
-When she moves slowly in the deep water, long waves rise above her, and
-whirlpools gyrate upon the coffee-coloured water; and if she shoots up
-on to the grass after a frog or a water-rat, and churns the water into
-foam, the whole pool is filled with breakers.
-
-Grim is a remnant of primeval ages, a creature from the time of the
-great swamps.
-
-Late in the autumn, when the dock was turning red, and the stiff spikes
-of the mare's-tails were bent like withered grass, black autumn showers
-filled the marsh to overflowing. The wet mud lay far up over the
-meadows and pastures, and poured like rivers through the ditches. Pool
-ran into pool, and the peat-cuttings, which lay side by side, only
-separated by high, narrow ridges, became one huge pit. It was a regular
-deluge.
-
-Grim swam far and wide, and almost fancied herself in the lake once
-more. She found her way into new oases where food was abundant, and
-made great inroads upon the numerous eels and tench that were flocking
-up from the brook through the ditches and channels. That autumn she
-really gained ground, and had something with which to withstand the
-winter.
-
-But one day in October it happened that an osprey that had got out of
-its course strayed in over the marsh. The morning mist had just
-disappeared, but the sun was not quite up, when the grey-brown bird was
-seen sailing high up in wide circles, its mottled breast gleaming in
-the sunlight; and with a black, hooked beak beneath a pair of sharp,
-sagacious eyes.
-
-The bird had come far and had not yet breakfasted; it came down nearer
-and nearer to the ground. All the little birds in the reeds began to
-cry out, and the coots sought shelter in the larger clumps of reeds.
-Like a kestrel, the bird kept at tree-height above the water, sailing
-backwards and forwards, keeping a sharp watch below.
-
-There was frost in the air, and the great, hungry fisher probably had a
-presentiment of the bolt that would soon close its larder. In any case
-it was quite determined to take both little and big, and leave nothing.
-
-It sailed on perseveringly from pool to pool, over the rushes in the
-muddy water and the bog-myrtle along the banks, moving slowly, with
-hanging claws.
-
-Grim comes up from deep water on her morning round, making the most of
-her time while the shadows still conceal her and veil her movements.
-Now and again she stops and lies in wait among the water-plants, with
-her torn, dorsal fin, still but half healed, standing a little above
-the water.
-
-On one of these occasions the osprey discovers her, and without
-recognizing what sort of a fish it is, hovers above the spot.
-
-More than once it descends in vain, but is at last successful.
-Unobserved by Grim, the bird darts upon her from behind with
-outstretched claws, and drives them with full force into her back. It
-feels its claws sink in, and the pleasant struggling of something
-alive.
-
-[Illustration: "The bird darts upon her from behind with outstretched
-claws, and drives them with full force into her back."]
-
-Its body is partly in the water, but the wings are quite clear, and it
-flaps vigorously, knowing it must lift its treasure with a quick
-movement.
-
-A shudder passes through Grim. At the first moment she fancies herself
-attacked by some scaly enemy, and shakes herself and whirls round,
-snapping fiercely. But there is nothing to get hold of; the surface of
-the water seems, as it were, to hold her fast.
-
-The osprey screams and beats his wings, sending up fountains of spray
-all round. Like others of his species, he is accustomed to master even
-the largest booty, and he still entertains the highest hopes and will
-not let go.
-
-Then all at once danger is imminent! The rash captor notices that the
-sustaining volume of air beneath his wings is growing less. Now his
-wings are beating the water. He tries to get rid of his prey, but
-cannot get his claws out quickly enough; and the next moment he is
-drawn down and, to his terror, feels--what he has never quite
-believed--that water is not after all his true element.
-
-Life is quickly departing from the hitherto victorious bird; the bold
-flyer, who has darted down hundreds of times and let the water close
-over his light, oiled feathers, to rise a moment later in a shower of
-spray and ascend proudly to dizzy heights, now sways, suffocated,
-ruffled and limp, upon feet whose claws seem rooted in fish-flesh.
-
-Grim lived all that winter with the eagle on her back, and felt
-strangely hampered in her movements. The bird gradually decomposed, and
-at last was only a skeleton that sometimes appeared weirdly above the
-surface.
-
-In the spring the whole rotted away, but Grim never got rid of the
-claws. To the day of her death they remained embedded in her back.
-
-She now began to find more dangerous enemies. Her various predatory
-attacks, which had not all passed unobserved, attracted an
-ever-increasing amount of attention. In the surrounding districts,
-where she was spoken of as a serpent and a dragon, myths began to be
-formed; she had once more to guard against man.
-
-They fired guns at her, and once she got a couple of stray shot in her
-side, but otherwise escaped with only a fright. Traps were set out, but
-they were fortunately much too small to allow of _her_ getting into
-them.
-
-One day she lay burrowing in the mud, so far down that not even the
-tiniest ripple reached the surface. There were indications
-nevertheless. From time to time little green-bearded, slime-covered
-pieces of reed came up vertically through the water, and lay flat as
-soon as they reached the surface. A farmer's lad, out spearing eels,
-sent his fork down eagerly. He missed his mark--as the shot had done
-before.
-
-One day, in the early summer, however, Grim came very near to finding
-her match.
-
-
-
-
-XIII: A FIGHT WITH AN OTTER
-
-
-The harrier was sitting on her newly-hatched young, and the pair of
-crows were feeding theirs for the last time; it was the time of the
-owls--and the nightingales. Silent and weary, the cuckoo came from the
-meadow-land to the bog, where the twilight enveloped it and hid it on
-its branch.
-
-The willow-thickets and the rushes settled gradually into cool and
-shade; only along the promontories and banks, where the dragonflies
-hunted, did the mid-summer sunlight still hold its ground.
-
-The water began to sparkle with strong, bright colours, and patches of
-yellow, scarlet, and blue floated about, shot with brilliant flakes of
-emerald and purple, which gave darkened reflections of the birch-tops.
-
-Only a few moments before, all the sloping banks of the bog had been
-held by the sun; it shone upon the flowers of the wild chervil and upon
-a narrow strip of orange gravel that had been scraped out of one of the
-banks.
-
-But now it was gone. The fully-opened hawthorn flowers reluctantly gave
-up their sunset blush, and shudderingly paled before the approaching
-gloom.
-
-Suddenly the nightingale up in the thicket becomes silent, stops in the
-middle of its highest trill, and begins to snarl.
-
-A large otter with low-set ears cautiously raises its head above the
-strip of gravel. It sniffs long and continuously, as it stretches its
-round, shaggy neck out over the ridge.
-
-Above the distant banks on the other side of the bog, the first glow of
-the full moon peeps out. Like a monster toadstool, it grows up out of
-the horizon, sending up a cloud of purple into the air. Up and up it
-goes, and when almost half its disc is visible, a group of firs, whose
-tops stand out against it, change to a giant poppy just unfolding.
-
-For a moment the flower stands out perfect, large and round at the end
-of its slender, black stalk, and then the illusion is shattered: from a
-toadstool the poppy has turned into a moon!
-
-Then the otter comes right up out of the earth, with body and tail and
-four legs, and shuffles down the slope. A couple of herons, fishing at
-the edge of the bog, bend their necks and make off with hoarse, shrill
-trumpetings; and a herd of splashing heifers, scenting the approach of
-a beast of prey, begin to growl and snort.
-
-The otter came to the bog every two or three months, when it was tired
-of hunting fish in the lake.
-
-A rover's blood flowed in its veins. Nature had endowed it with a
-peculiarly active power of assimilation, which was probably necessary
-if it was to keep warm in the cold water; it needed daily its own
-weight in fish, and therefore had to be incessantly changing its
-hunting-ground.
-
-It was timid and suspicious, but a great glutton.
-
-Pike, which it used especially to catch in the bogs, were somewhat dry,
-it is true, but after all, one could not have salmon and trout every
-day!
-
-After having labouriously shuffled over a piece of land, and reached
-the largest of the big pools, it allowed itself to glide noiselessly
-from its slip--a path trodden in the grass--into its true element.
-
-A few minutes later there was an unusual disturbance in the water,
-which splashed high up about the dunes and foamed over the banks. A
-wild chase was going on in the depths, and where it passed the rushes
-bowed their sheaves and the flags their fans. Black mud was stirred up
-in whirlpools; seething bubbles came to the surface and burst.
-
-The otter, with a newly-caught fish in its mouth, had been on its way
-out to a little island, intending to have its meal under a sallow, when
-it was suddenly attacked and robbed of its prey. It caught a glimpse of
-the indistinct outline of a great fish, and exasperated at such
-audacity, determined to go in chase of the robber.
-
-An attempt to get beneath Grim, in order to seize her round the gills
-or by the belly, was unsuccessful; at the decisive moment Grim had
-turned aside, so that the otter had to set its teeth where it could.
-And it needed a well-placed grip to hold such a giant fish.
-
-The instant it has taken hold--a little behind the neck--Grim darts
-into deep water with her assailant. The otter backs, extends his fore
-and hind legs far out from his body, and spreads his web, so as to
-offer as much resistance as possible. Just as the weasel lets itself be
-carried away by the hare in whose neck it has fixed itself, so now the
-otter allowed himself to be dragged through the bog by the lynx of the
-waters.
-
-Grim soon sees that this pace is wearing out her strength, and pauses
-for a moment.
-
-As she does so, she feels as if an eel were winding its pliant body
-round her chest. She rolls round, unable to use her fins. She quickly
-regains her balance, however, frees her body from the pressure, and
-sets off, with sudden twists, and leaps from the bottom to the surface,
-turning so suddenly that the fish-snatcher's body swings out and hangs
-down in the water.
-
-But the otter only keeps a firmer hold. He is used to these desperate
-rallies, which always become fiercer and more violent as the quarry is
-on the point of giving in. He takes care, however, in turning, not to
-let any of his legs hang in front of the pike's mouth; he is too well
-acquainted with the teeth of the fresh-water shark!
-
-Up and down, the two well-matched opponents dive incessantly.
-
-Whenever Grim goes to the surface, a puffing and growling is heard. The
-otter hastily gasps for breath, and tightens his hold with his
-fore-claws; but when they are on their way down to the depths, and
-air-bubbles, like silver beads, roll through the water behind him, he
-has only to hold on and let himself go.
-
-Once Grim is lucky. An old snag sticks up in the water, and, in
-turning, the otter's body is dashed against it. It sends a shock
-through the animal, but as Grim for the moment has exhausted her energy
-and succumbed to one of the well-known fits of weakness common to her
-species, the otter once more apparently gets the upper hand.
-
-Thus with varying fortunes the battle rages for some time.
-
-They lie fighting on the surface--a golden-streaked, slimy, scaly fish
-twisted into a knot with a dark, hairy, furred body!
-
-Once more there is a pause in the fighting.
-
-Unobserved by Grim, who has just fallen into one of her apathetic fits,
-the otter endeavours carefully to float the pike up under one of the
-large mounds, in order to drag her up with an effort of strength on to
-dry land; but the attempt fails utterly: he is simply unable to manage
-so great a load.
-
-Now Grim's strength returns once more. With a powerful stroke of her
-tail, she disappears with lightning rapidity from the surface, and goes
-to the bottom with her rider, whose merry-go-round jaunt makes his head
-swim. She is trying to get hold of his leg or body, and therefore
-twists round with him so that he flaps like a loose piece of strap on
-an axle; but she is not sufficiently supple to reach him. Her back
-aches, her flexor muscles hurt. At last she has met with an opponent
-who puts her judgment, her ingenuity, and her endurance to the extreme
-test.
-
-Down on the bottom, sticking out from the bank, are the roots of the
-willow-bushes on the edge. In her mad rush down, Grim has come near
-these, and instinctively seeks shelter beneath them. At full speed she
-runs her long body into the network and sticks fast, rapidly twisting
-her tail-screw both ahead and astern.
-
-The otter treads water now on the right, now on the left side of her,
-and tries, by utilizing the roots as steps, to lift her up with him.
-But in vain; he cannot even stir the huge fish!
-
-His teeth are still far from having forced their way through; it seems
-as if, short and rounded as they are, they cannot reach the bottom. But
-he makes tremendous exertions, whipping his tail in under the
-peat-bank, while with his hind paws he seeks for support in clefts and
-cracks. Suddenly he feels one of his feet seized. The grasp tightens,
-so that his whole leg aches; he tries to draw in his foot, but it is
-held immovable.
-
-A monster crayfish, that has become so stiff with age that it can
-scarcely manage to strike a proper blow with its tail, has made for
-itself, in fear of Grim, a reliable place of refuge in the hole. For a
-long time it has patiently followed the battle through its feelers, and
-hoped that some morsel would fall to its hungry stomach; now, with
-gratitude to Providence, it closes its great claw upon the warm-blooded
-fisher.
-
-A growing uneasiness steals over the otter. He had once been caught by
-the tip of one claw in an otter-trap. The trap was heavy, and had
-dragged him under water; and he had only escaped at the last moment.
-With the grasp on his leg, his lungs begin to warn him, his throat
-contracts, and his eyes seem on the point of bursting. Up! Up! With or
-without his prey!
-
-He has let go of Grim, and now makes his escape from the hole with so
-sudden a jerk that the old crayfish accompanies him; but the dread of
-water, which no living being that breathes with lungs can quite
-overcome, has taken possession of the otter. With all possible speed he
-slips out from among the roots, and is already rising; and as he
-approaches the surface and finds the blessed light beating more and
-more strongly upon the mud about his eyes, he hastens his flight,
-until, with an eager sniff, he reaches the surface.
-
-Grim is close behind him, and as the otter lands, there is a loud
-splash. It would have been all over with the brown beast if the old
-crayfish, on its way down from the surface, where it had at last let go
-its hold, had not dropped like a stone straight into Grim's mouth. Grim
-has now to content herself with sending her opponent a cold, dull,
-fishy glance, and let the Nipper continue its journey down into her
-draw-bag.
-
-The wound that the old giant pike had received was not a dangerous one.
-True, there were two rows of deep cuts made by a pair of thick,
-round-toothed jaws in the flesh on one side of her back; but they
-healed like so many others that she had had in her time. Her back,
-however, was tender for days after, and she found it a little difficult
-to leap.
-
-The impudent, four-footed fisher never went hunting again in _her_
-water-hole. The otter felt quite sure that it was only by good fortune
-that it had not been annihilated by its great, dangerous rival.
-
-
-
-
-XIV: THE ANGLER FROM TOWN
-
-
-The lake had changed since the old angler's death; its former peace and
-poetry were gone. The big swimming-birds had multiplied tremendously,
-and dashed about restlessly every day, swallowing the fish by means of
-constantly improving implements.
-
-One of the latest of these was a ten-horsepower motor-boat, manned by a
-little, sinewy man, thin and elastic, and with a superabundance of
-energy. He was a journalist by profession, and editor of a paper; the
-hurry and unrest of a new age burned in him; whether he wrote or
-refreshed himself with sport, he did it with the same strength and
-enthusiasm.
-
-Grim's first captor had been an old-style votary of the rod and line;
-he loved to cast anchor in some quiet spot, light his pipe, and sit
-watching his lines. The journalist from town was of the very opposite
-temperament, constantly rushing about and hauling in and making fresh
-casts elsewhere.
-
-He had taken a house for the summer by the lake, and among the
-red-currant bushes in the garden he had set up his little aquarium,
-which contained a couple of crayfish, a few perch, and a young pike.
-
-Every morning he dug up worms for his aquarium-fish, and fed them
-carefully.
-
-If neither pike nor perch touched the worms, and the crayfish did not
-take them either when they sank to the bottom, he tranquilly devoted
-himself to his work all day; but if the reverse happened, then the
-leading article would be short; the editor was occupied elsewhere.
-
-One day, when he was sitting in his office in town, the telephone rang.
-His wife was at the other end of the wire, and told him that the pike
-was feeding like mad.
-
-He thrills at the news. His paper has long had news about Grim, the
-mysterious monster. The expedition is all prepared, his tackle is in
-order; he has only been waiting for the signal from the aquarium.
-
-A few hours later the enthusiastic little man, after a forced
-bicycle-ride under the scorching sun of a suffocating July day, finds
-himself among fragrant iris and bog-myrtle. Accompanied by a local
-peat-digger, who, from fear of the monster, has armed himself with a
-gun, he turns off by one of the paths.
-
-The wind is blowing through the local jungle, and rustling its myriads
-of leaves with a sound that to the editor's ears resembles the
-continual crumpling of a huge newspaper. The stiff, bluish-green
-rushes, with their black joints, bend caressingly about him, and the
-strong, spicy scent of wild mint, mingled with the sharp, acrid vapour
-from the bog, ascends to his nostrils.
-
-For a moment he stands among the rushes, drawing deep breaths as he
-listens enraptured to the deafening music of nature. The larks are
-carolling above his head, and the wild ducks rise with a great deal of
-splashing and fuss; now a snipe comes sailing past and sinks in a long,
-concave curve.
-
-A sunbeam finds its way into the jungle, and showers a cascade of
-shifting, dancing patches of light over him. He perspires and pants,
-and wipes his forehead; he blows his nose after the manner of primitive
-man; he has once more become the kind of being that the Almighty called
-Man, when He placed him on the earth.
-
-At an opening in the rushy margin, where an old, fern-clad ridge runs
-out into the water, he gets his rod ready.
-
-And now let Grim beware! Here comes a fisherman with shrewdness and
-intelligence! His clothes are the colour of the heron's feathers, his
-rod painted sky-blue, and his line is grey-green like the long stalks
-of the water-plants.
-
-He creeps along the mossy, boggy bank, taking care to avoid all
-disturbance of the water. The pike is timid, and easily put to flight,
-watchful and agile; if he only breaks a reed, if he only lets a
-snail-shell drop into the water, it will perceive him. He finds out
-places where he thinks the fish is lying, and expectantly drops his
-bait beyond the edge of the reeds on the point of land.
-
-The peat-cutter follows him at some distance. He has strict orders on
-no account to utter a syllable, and to tread with extreme caution and
-care. He has his gun all ready, for he is thinking with misgiving of
-all the stories he has heard about the fabulous "serpent." He
-recollects that Sidse, old Anders' girl, has seen it. She was watering
-the cows when it shot up out of the deep water with a splash, and shook
-itself like a dog. She had distinctly heard the jingling of the scales
-in its mane.
-
-And Ole, the wheelwright, too.
-
-"Such a head!" he had said. "As big as a calf's! And the skin round the
-corners of its mouth all in great, thick folds!" As to its eyes, he had
-said they were yellow like those of a hare.
-
-He must remember to tell _that_ to the newspaper-man.
-
-At that moment he hears a warning whistle, the signal to stop and
-remain where he is, so as not to spoil possible chances by his sudden
-appearance.
-
-An electric shock has darted through the sportsman, and for a moment he
-stands as if petrified, in keen suspense.
-
-He has felt a bite, and with lowered rod he slowly and carefully lets
-out plenty of line.
-
-The pike has taken the bait, or so he firmly believes; but he waits
-minute after minute, and the line never moves.
-
-Alas! the hook is caught in something! His best and strongest hook,
-selected from among hundreds for this very expedition! In vain he
-employs every artifice; he cannot free it. He will have to give up his
-fishing and abandon the line.
-
-What an embarrassing story to have to tell! People have such nasty
-tongues. And the peat-digger over there! No, that would be too much!
-Besides, this suffocating heat has long tempted him to have a bath out
-here, so he promptly strips and goes in. He is swimming along the edge
-of the reeds where there is a little open water, when all at once he
-feels his left leg seized. It is as though a pair of garden shears had
-suddenly cut into it!
-
-Involuntarily he begins to shout and kick, but the next moment he is
-dragged out and down towards deep water. He feels the teeth of the
-monster sinking deeper and deeper into his leg, and is on the point of
-losing his senses as he cries aloud for help.
-
-The peat-cutter hurries up with all possible speed, just in time to
-catch the outline of a long, black shadow, working under water. At
-haphazard he fires off both charges. At the same time the editor
-shrieks still more horribly, and raises himself in the water. A cold,
-sharp edge, as of a knife, is drawn along his body, as Grim, frightened
-by the shots, disappears beneath him.
-
-Other peat-cutters come up, and together they pull the unfortunate
-editor ashore. The blood is spouting from his leg in several places,
-but one of the men ties his trouser-strap round it. Some one telephones
-for a doctor, a carriage is fetched, and the editor is then driven to
-his home.
-
-The wound was a serious one. The doctor had to wash and bandage it. On
-the outer side of the calf, the deep marks of Grim's upper teeth were
-visible, in two rows at a distance of more than a hand's breadth from
-one another, wound after wound, going deep into the flesh. It was
-clearly the bite from the jaws of some great animal.
-
-The oracle's prophecy that the editor would get a bite had in truth
-been fulfilled!
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-This occurrence put fresh life into the stories circulating in the
-district about the escaped crocodile, or the serpent, or the dragon,
-that always frequented black bogs.
-
-The monster must be removed. For a long time cattle and horses had not
-been safe when they came to the watering-places; and now it attacked
-people when bathing!
-
-What sort of an animal was it?
-
-People demanded that the local board should provide them with an ocular
-demonstration.
-
-Several of the holes were emptied, but they were the wrong ones.
-Through others nets were drawn with a team of horses at each end. Grim
-was almost caught two or three times, and only saved herself by
-burrowing into the mud, and letting the net pass over her.
-
-Then they set to work to drain the whole bog. They started the old
-windmills from the peat-cutting time, whirled all the screws about, and
-pumped the water from one large pool into another.
-
-Grim was imprisoned, and at last lay buried in slush. Had they only
-gone on for another day they would have discovered her; but,
-fortunately for her, the wind dropped, and when it seemed to be all
-over with her, the high dam which kept in the water of the neighbouring
-pool broke, and all their labour was wasted.
-
-After this the enthusiasm and interest cooled.
-
-Who said it was a crocodile? Had anyone seen it? Was it not more likely
-to have been an otter? For the local board did not believe in serpents
-or in dragons!
-
-
-
-
-XV: LUCK
-
-
-He climbed over some barbed-wire fences, and in doing so made a large
-number of ventilation holes in his nether garments.
-
-The primitive fishing-tackle that dangled behind his back consisted of
-a piece of rope with a couple of beer-barrel bungs for a float, and a
-length of strong, home-twisted iron wire for a trace. The great hook,
-which must have been intended to catch whales with, was a clumsy steel
-one that the village smith's apprentice, who was just finishing his
-time, had made for him; the rod was a short, thick beanpole.
-
-Little Rasmus was an angler with no shrewdness or intelligence worth
-mentioning. In his hand he carried an old, battered water-can, in which
-were his bait--a few bastard carp, caught by trawling with an
-osier-basket in the village pond. They had not been treated _secundum
-artem_; they had not spent the night in a tub under a running tap, and
-had not felt any salutary coolness of the gills from having small
-pieces of ice dropped into their tepid water from time to time. No, a
-little grass and mud at the bottom of the can was all they had had in
-which to keep themselves alive.
-
-Rasmus tried several, and at last found one that could just flap its
-tail. From habit, and for luck, he spat upon it.
-
-The pools were smooth and clear in the cool September air. To look down
-into them was like looking through a magnifying-glass at the bottom,
-where brown-shelled, fresh-water mussels and white-shelled planorbes
-were discernible among the water-grass and mosses. The reed-tassels,
-that had formerly been so blue, were now brown and downy at the tip;
-and all the flags among the rushes trembled under the weight of their
-heavy seed-pods.
-
-Rasmus quickly made ready his line and went out.
-
-"Aatch!" cried a snipe, as soon as he set foot in the bog, and a little
-later he put up seven or eight more, which fluttered along in uneven
-zigzags over the muddy herbage, and then suddenly rose in steep,
-winding curves. With interest the boy watched them in their rapid
-flight, saw how they hastened the strokes of their wings and circled
-round the bog, until one by one they broke from the rank and
-disappeared in a downward dive.
-
-At the end of a ridge, which ran out in a blunt promontory in one of
-the pits, he tried a throw, and stood for a little while waiting; but
-as the bait had found a hole in which to hide, and the big bung-float
-lay still, he pulled it up, and went, with his rope-line gathered over
-his outstretched arm, to a new place.
-
-He came into a thicket of meadow-sweet and wild raspberries.
-Late-flowering blue forget-me-nots covered the ground. He plucked one,
-smelt it, but threw it away as the sound of a great splash reached his
-ear.
-
-By balancing along a plank he got on to a little solitary island
-surrounded by duck-weed. The plank swayed very much under him, and the
-island sank alarmingly beneath his weight; but he could see that it had
-borne people before, and he was on it now! A bushy grey willow grew in
-the middle of the island, and a spike of purple loose-strife raised its
-head above it.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Grim was lying in a flat, muddy bay, hidden in a large clump of
-mares'-tails. A fat, lazy carp was half swimming, half floating in the
-open water in front of her. Had she not been in the bog with its
-scarcity of food, the very sight of such carrion would have made her
-sick; as it was, she took it with thankfulness, and ran at it with such
-greed that she gulped it straight down, and got a large steel hook far
-down in her stomach.
-
-For a moment she felt it was an uncomfortable mouthful; the flabby
-morsel must have gone down the wrong way. Well, she would disgorge it!
-
-But she could not, and there was a thick stalk like a water-lily stem
-that kept tickling her throat. She was going to spit the stalk out,
-when she noticed that it was rooted in a tuft of reeds.
-
-"Rubbish!" thought Grim, as she flourished her fins and twisted her
-tail; for she meant to get out of this warm corner. She set her teeth
-and started off. The mares' tails broke and the rushes curtsied as she
-crashed along; everything rocked--the bank and the bay, the reeds and
-the island; it seemed to the boy as if a pig were running round and
-rooting about under the water.
-
-The enthusiastic fisherman in grey-weather cloth, with sky-blue rod,
-silk line, and running tackle, had never had the luck to catch this
-monster; and here was little Rasmus with his bean-pole, his steel hook
-and his tethering-rope, and his tackle held!
-
-Grim pulled at the line till the rod was half under water. The boy had
-all but let go, when a sudden violent jerk upset him. He had no time to
-save himself, and with the rod in his arms he fell into the
-willow-bush. The rope tightened so that the strands creaked and
-groaned; but the rod was fast in the bush.
-
-Rasmus thinks of making for the shore by the plank, but sees, to his
-terror, that the island is afloat. The fish on his hook has pulled it
-away from its anchorage, and is now dragging him out into the deep
-water. The water bubbles about the rope and foams out from the island,
-as if it were the bow of a racing-yacht. Sometimes the little raft
-heels over horribly, so that Rasmus's wooden shoes are filled with
-water. He has quite given himself up for lost, and is repeating the
-Lord's Prayer.
-
-In the meantime, Grim is dragging him, like a second Tom Thumb, from
-one end of the pool to the other. She twists and turns, dives down head
-first to the bottom, only to shoot straight up a few seconds later to
-the surface to lash it into foam and waves. Great bubbles and myriads
-of atoms of horrid, black peat-sediment float like swelling clouds in
-all directions.
-
-Now and then the boy catches sight of a wrinkled, moss-grown back about
-as long as a bull's. It looks to him like one of the ancient oaks of
-the bog coming up to lie and float on the surface.
-
-Gradually, as the large, pointed steel hook enters farther and farther
-into Grim's intestines, and makes her cold, red blood flow the wrong
-way, her movements become less and less rapid.
-
-The water makes things dim; she no longer sees clearly, and runs full
-tilt into banks and clumps of reeds. She feels delightfully surfeited,
-and darts about the pool with the sensation of dragging with her the
-greatest booty she had ever taken in her life. How it seems to fill her
-stomach! At last, _at last_ she is satiated, so that her throat seems
-ready to burst and her jaws to part asunder; and all at once she
-notices the same strange over-burdened feeling that she had had that
-day many years ago, when in greed she had swallowed the big perch.
-
-Wildly and recklessly she drags on the rope, careering around with her
-little captor; but every time she jerks him off an island, or through
-thickly-matted vegetation, she drives the point of the iron nearer to
-her heart. At last, in the fever of death, she rushes right in to the
-bank, and runs the boy aground on an island of reeds.
-
-She lies floating just below the surface, and Rasmus, who now and then
-between the water-plants catches sight of her greenish-yellow belly and
-black-spotted tail-fin, cries out in terror.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The old pike of many adventures is wandering in her mind. Is it the
-big, black perch that she has at last succeeded in consuming? Is it the
-bull with horns? Or is it one of the big swimming-bird's young?
-
-Yes, _that_ is it! This time she has succeeded in getting hold of its
-long leg, and has at last swallowed it and has it safely in her
-stomach.
-
-But it weighs her down, so that she can no longer keep in a horizontal
-position. Yes, she feels that distinctly; it is so tremendously
-satisfying that her tail is sinking and her head rising, and now all at
-once she rises slowly and stiffly from the water.
-
-The boy almost goes crazy at the sight, and involuntarily covers his
-eyes with his hands, so fantastically horrible does it appear. Out of
-the black, muddy water and the purple, poisonous-green plants from
-which the gases of decomposition release great, bladdery bubbles,
-stands out Grim's huge, crocodile head, cold and staring.
-
-The flabby, wrinkled skin of the throat vibrates with her violent,
-convulsive gulps, and the lower jaw of more than arm's length is pushed
-out beyond the upper, exposing to view the extreme points of a row of
-long, dagger-like teeth at the shrunken corners of the mouth.
-
-The monster now turns slowly on her axis, her big, expressionless,
-watery eye, looking, with its dirty grey colour, like an unwashed
-window in an empty, deserted house, projects, fixed and blind, from her
-huge head.
-
-The iron has reached her swimming-bladder, and robbed her of the power
-of navigation. She grows dizzy, and like a great float at the bite of a
-big fish, she goes down silently and straight.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-A man busy ploughing heard the boy's cry, and running up, learned what
-was the matter: a monster of an animal, that Rasmus could not pull up,
-had sailed over half the bog with him!
-
-The man fished up the plank, and helped the boy ashore. Then he fetched
-his horses, harnessed them to the line, and drew Grim slowly, but
-surely, up on to the bank.
-
-She lay that night moored to a birch-tree. Life was long since extinct.
-
-A message was telephoned to the innkeeper, who collected items of news
-for the editor's paper, "that Peter Jenn's son had caught, under the
-strangest circumstances, a specimen of the great sea-serpent. It
-resembled a prehistoric toad rather than a fish of the present day."
-
-The following day the whole district gathered at the spot, and the
-schoolmaster appeared with a man of science who had been summoned.
-
-"Why, it's a pike," said the professor, as soon as he saw it, "an
-unusually large and old specimen, it is true, but still only a pike."
-And it must be confessed that he felt a little hurt at having been
-called out on so long a journey for nothing.
-
-For many years afterwards Rasmus was the hero of the village, and from
-that day he never went by the name of Rasmus Jenn, but was called
-Rasmus Pike.
-
-THE END
-
-
-
-
-THE BORZOI-GYLDENDAL BOOKS
-
-The firm of Gyldendal [Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk Forlag] is the
-oldest and greatest publishing house in Scandinavia, and has been
-responsible, since its inception in 1770, for giving to the world some
-of the greatest Danish and Norwegian writers of three centuries. Among
-them are such names as Ibsen, Bj�rnstjerne Bj�rnson, Pontoppidan,
-Brandes, Gjellerup, Hans Christian Andersen, and Knut Hamsun, the Nobel
-Prize winner for 1920, whose works I am publishing in America.
-
-It is therefore with particular satisfaction that I announce the
-completion of arrangements whereby I shall bring out in this country
-certain of the publications of this famous house. The books listed
-below are the first of the _Borzoi-Gyldendal_ books.
-
-Jenny
-
-A novel translated from the Norwegian of Sigrid Undset by W. Emm�.
-
-The Sworn Brothers
-
-A Tale of the Early Days of Iceland. Translated from the Danish of
-Gunnar Gunnarsson [Icelandic] by C. Field and W. Emm�.
-
-Grim: the Story of a Pike
-
-ALFRED A. KNOPF, _Publisher_, NEW YORK
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Grim: The Story of a Pike, by Svend Fleuron
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE ***
-
-***** This file should be named 40921-8.txt or 40921-8.zip *****
-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
-        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/2/40921/
-
-Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
-will be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
-rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
-research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
-redistribution.
-
-
-
-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
-http://gutenberg.org/license).
-
-
-Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works
-
-1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
-
-1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
-paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
-collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
-are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
-the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
-a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
-Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
-States.
-
-1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
-copied or distributed:
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
-or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
-1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
-terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
-word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
-form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
-that
-
-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
-     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
-     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
-     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
-     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
-     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
-     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
-     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
-     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
-     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
-     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-     License.  You must require such a user to return or
-     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
-     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
-     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
-     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
-     of receipt of the work.
-
-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
-collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
-your equipment.
-
-1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
-your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
-refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
-opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
-the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
-
-
-Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
-people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
-and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
-
-
-Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
-Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
-http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
-throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
-809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
-business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
-information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
-page at http://pglaf.org
-
-For additional contact information:
-     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
-     Chief Executive and Director
-     gbnewby@pglaf.org
-
-
-Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
-particular state visit http://pglaf.org
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
-To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
-
-
-Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
-with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
-
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
-unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
-
-
-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
-
-     http://www.gutenberg.org
-
-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/40921-8.zip b/40921-8.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index b399ba3..0000000
--- a/40921-8.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/40921-h.zip b/40921-h.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index 226b316..0000000
--- a/40921-h.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/40921-h/40921-h.htm b/40921-h/40921-h.htm
index 933304a..58c3e86 100644
--- a/40921-h/40921-h.htm
+++ b/40921-h/40921-h.htm
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
      xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"
 >
 <head>
- <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/> 
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"/> 
    <meta name='title' content='Grim: The Story of a Pike'/>
    <meta name='author' content='Svend Fleuron'/>
    <meta name='date' content='1921'/>
@@ -27,48 +27,7 @@
    </style>
 </head>
 <body>
-
-
-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grim: The Story of a Pike, by Svend Fleuron
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: Grim: The Story of a Pike
-
-Author: Svend Fleuron
-
-Illustrator: Dorothy P. Lathrop
-
-Translator: J. Muir
-            J. Alexander
-
-Release Date: October 2, 2012 [EBook #40921]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40921 ***</div>
 
 <div class='figure'>
 <a id='illus-fpc'></a>
@@ -3656,384 +3615,6 @@ Gunnar Gunnarsson [Icelandic] by C. Field and W. Emmé.</p>
 <p style='text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;text-align:center;'>ALFRED A. KNOPF, <em>Publisher</em>, NEW YORK</p>
 </div> <!-- chapter -->
 
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Grim: The Story of a Pike, by Svend Fleuron
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE ***
-
-***** This file should be named 40921-h.htm or 40921-h.zip *****
-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
-        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/2/40921/
-
-Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
-will be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
-rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
-research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
-redistribution.
-
-
-
-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
-http://gutenberg.org/license).
-
-
-Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works
-
-1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
-
-1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
-paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
-collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
-are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
-the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
-a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
-Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
-States.
-
-1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
-copied or distributed:
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
-or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
-1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
-terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
-word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
-form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
-that
-
-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
-     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
-     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
-     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
-     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
-     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
-     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
-     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
-     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
-     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
-     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-     License.  You must require such a user to return or
-     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
-     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
-     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
-     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
-     of receipt of the work.
-
-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
-collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
-your equipment.
-
-1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
-your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
-refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
-opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
-the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
-
-
-Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
-people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
-and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
-
-
-Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
-Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
-http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
-throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
-809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
-business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
-information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
-page at http://pglaf.org
-
-For additional contact information:
-     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
-     Chief Executive and Director
-     gbnewby@pglaf.org
-
-
-Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
-particular state visit http://pglaf.org
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
-To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
-
-
-Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
-with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
-
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
-unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
-
-
-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
-
-     http://www.gutenberg.org
-
-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
-
-
-</pre>
-
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40921 ***</div>
 </body>
 </html>
diff --git a/40921.txt b/40921.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 02b15f4..0000000
--- a/40921.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,4052 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grim: The Story of a Pike, by Svend Fleuron
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: Grim: The Story of a Pike
-
-Author: Svend Fleuron
-
-Illustrator: Dorothy P. Lathrop
-
-Translator: J. Muir
-            J. Alexander
-
-Release Date: October 2, 2012 [EBook #40921]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: "A wild chase was going on in the depths, and where it
-passed the rushes bowed their sheaves."]
-
-
-
-
-GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE
-
-Translated from the Danish of
-
-Svend Fleuron
-
-by J. Muir and J. Alexander
-
-Illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop
-
-New York MCMXXI
-
-Alfred A. Knopf
-
-
-
-
-COPYRIGHT, 1919
-
-By SVEND FLEURON
-
-COPYRIGHT, 1921
-
-By ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.
-
-Original Title: Grim
-
-PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
-
-
-
-
-To devour others and to avoid being devoured oneself,
-that is life's end and aim.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-  I: LIFE
-  II: IN THE SHELTER OF THE CREEK
-  III: GRIM GOES EXPLORING
-  IV: THE MARAUDERS
-  V: THE PEARLY FISH
-  VI: THE MAN-ROACH
-  VII: THE RASPER
-  VIII: THE ANGLER'S END
-  IX: THE WEDDING FESTIVAL
-  X: IN THE MARSH
-  XI: TERROR
-  XII: GRIM DEVELOPS
-  XIII: A FIGHT WITH AN OTTER
-  XIV: THE ANGLER FROM TOWN
-  XV: LUCK
-
-
-
-
-ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-A wild chase was going on in the depths, and where it passed the rushes
-bowed their sheaves.
-
-With a hiss it curves its neck and turns the foil upwards, snapping and
-biting at its tormentors.
-
-She snaps eagerly at the nearest "worm," but it escapes her by adroitly
-curling up.
-
-The bird darts upon her from behind with outstretched claws, and drives
-them with full force into her back.
-
-
-
-
-I: LIFE
-
-
-Clear running water filled the ditch, but the bottom was dull black,
-powdery mud. It lay inches deep, layer upon layer of one tiny particle
-upon another, and so loose and light that a thick, opaque, smoke-like
-column ascended at the slightest touch.
-
-A monster, with the throat and teeth of a crocodile, a flat,
-treacherous forehead, and large, dull, malicious eyes, was lying close
-to the bottom in the wide, sun-warmed cross-dyke that cut its way
-inland from the level depths of the great lake. The entire monster
-measured scarcely a finger's length.
-
-The upspringing water-plants veiled her body and drew waving shadows
-over her round, slender tail.
-
-When the sun was shining she liked to stay here among the bottom
-vegetation and imitate a drifting piece of reed. Her reddish-brown
-colour with the tiger-like transverse stripes made an excellent
-disguise. She simply _was_ a piece of reed. Even the sharp-eyed heron,
-which had dropped down unnoticed about a dozen yards off, and was now
-noiselessly, with slow, cautious steps, wading nearer and nearer, took
-her at the first glance for a stick.
-
-All the ditch-water life of a summer day was pulsating around the young
-pike.
-
-Water-spiders went up for air and came down with it between their hind
-legs, to moor their silvery diving-bells beneath the whorls of the
-water-moss. One boat-bug after another, with a shining air-bubble on
-its belly to act as a swimming-bag, and for oars a pair of long legs
-sticking far out at the sides, darted with great spurts through the
-water, or rose and sank with the speed of a balloon. The young pike
-peered upwards, and saw in the shelter of a tuft of rushes a collection
-of black, boat-shaped whirligigs, showing like dots against the shining
-surface. The little water-beetles lay and dozed; but all at once a
-sudden storm seemed to descend upon them and they scattered
-precipitately, whirling away in wider and wider circles, only to
-congregate again just as suddenly, like a flock of sheep.
-
-The young pike disappeared from the heron's view in a cloud of mud, and
-glided off to some distance, finally coming to anchor on a wide
-submerged plain in a broad creek, shadowed by a clump of luxuriant
-marsh marigolds, whose yellow flowers gleamed out from among the
-clusters of green, heart-shaped leaves.
-
-There was never any peace around her. When one animal was on its way
-down, another would be on its way up. And the bed of ooze beneath her
-was in incessant motion. Sticks moved to right and left; hairy balls
-lay and rolled over one another; there was a twisting and turning of
-larvae in all directions. The active water-beetles were dredging
-incessantly, releasing leaves and stalks which slowly and weirdly rose
-to the surface. Air-bubbles, too, were set free, and ascended quickly
-with a rotary motion.
-
-Here two large tiger-beetles were fighting with a poor water-bug. The
-flat-bodied insect stretched out its scorpion-like claws towards its
-enemies, but the tiger-beetles seized it one at each end, beat off its
-claws with their strong palpi, and tore its head from its body. It must
-have been almost a pleasure to find oneself so neatly despatched!
-
-Everything tortured and killed down here, some, indeed, even devoured
-themselves. To lose arms and legs and flesh from their body was all in
-the order of the day; and anything resting for but a minute was taken
-for carrion.
-
-The big horse-leech had wound its rhythmically serpentine way through
-the water. It was tired now, and had just stretched itself out for a
-moment's rest, when the supposed pieces of stick upon which it lay
-seized it, and voracious heads with sharp jaws attacked its flesh. It
-was within an ace of being made captive for ever, but at last succeeded
-in making its escape and pushing off, with two of its tormentors after
-it.
-
-The young pike watched attentively the flight of the black leech. She
-saw that _to devour others and to avoid being devoured oneself_ was the
-end and aim of life.
-
-For a long time she remained quite still, only an undulating movement
-of the dorsal fin and the malicious glitter of the eyes revealing her
-vitality. Slowly she opened and closed her small, wide mouth, and let
-the oxidizing water flow over her blood-red gills.
-
-It was not long before she had forgotten her recent peril, and once
-more became filled with the cruel passion of the hunter.
-
-From the shadow of the marsh marigolds she darted under the newly
-unfolded leaf of a water-lily. This was a very favourite lurking-place;
-she could lie there with her back right up against the under surface of
-the leaf, and her snout on the very border of its shadow, ready to
-strike. The silvery flash of small fish twinkled around her, and
-myriads of tiny shining crustaceans whisked about so close to her nose
-that at any moment she could have snapped them up by the score into her
-voracious mouth.
-
-It was especially things that moved that had a magic attraction for
-Grim. From the time when, but twelve to fifteen days old, she had
-consumed the contents of her yolksac, and opened her large voracious
-mouth, everything that flickered, twisted and moved, all that sought to
-_escape_, aroused her irresistible desire.
-
-In the innermost depths of her being there was an over-mastering need,
-expressing itself in an insatiableness, a conviction that she could
-never have enough, and a fear that others would clear the waters of all
-that was eatable. An insane greed animated her; and even when she had
-eaten so much that she could eat no more, she kept swimming about with
-spoil in her mouth.
-
-On the other hand, anything at rest and quiet possessed little
-attraction for her; she felt no hunger at sight of it, and no desire to
-possess it: _that_ she could take at any time.
-
-----Meanwhile, the keen-eyed heron, wading up to its breast in the water,
-comes softly and silently trawling through the ditch.
-
-Sedately it goes about its business, stalking along with slow, measured
-steps. Its big, seemingly heavy body sways upon its thin, greenish
-yellow legs, its short tail almost combing the surface of the water,
-while its long, round neck is in constant motion, directing the
-dagger-like beak like a foil into all kinds of attacking positions.
-
-[Illustration: "With a hiss it curves its neck and turns the foil
-upwards, snapping and biting at its tormentors."]
-
-Sea-crows and terns scream around it, and from time to time three or
-four of them unite in harrying their great rival. Just as the heron has
-brought its beak close to the surface of the water, ready to seize its
-prey, the gulls dash upon it from behind. With a hiss it curves its
-neck and turns the foil upwards, snapping and biting at its tormentors.
-
-An irritating little flock of gulls may go on thus for a long time; and
-when at last, screaming and mocking, they take their departure, they
-have spoilt many a chance and wasted many precious minutes of the big,
-silent, patient fisher's time.
-
-The gulls once gone, the heron applies itself with redoubled zeal to
-its business. From various attacking positions its beak darts down into
-the water, but often without result, and it has to go farther afield;
-then at last it captures a little eel.
-
-It is not easy, however, to swallow the wriggling captive. The eel
-twists, and refuses to be swallowed; so the bird has to reduce its
-liveliness by rolling up and down in its sharp-edged beak. Then it
-glides down.
-
-This time, too, fortune is disposed to favour the young pike. The
-heron, coming up behind her, cautiously bends its neck over the
-drifting piece of reed. It sees there is something suspicious about it,
-but thinks it is mistaken, and is about to take another step forward.
-When only half-way, it pauses with its foot in the air; and the next
-moment the blow falls.
-
-Grim only once moved her tail. Then she was seized, something hard and
-sharp and strong held her fast, and she passed head foremost down into
-a warm, narrow channel.
-
-There was a fearful crush of fish in the channel, and much elbowing
-with fins and twisting of tails. Something behind her was pushing, but
-the throng in front blocked the way: she could get no farther.
-
-And yet she glided on! Very slowly the thick slimy water in the channel
-bore the living, muddy tangle that surrounded her along; she felt the
-corners of her mouth rub against the sides of the channel; she could
-scarcely breathe.
-
-In the meantime the heron was flying homewards to its young, carrying
-Grim and the rest of the catch. Out on the lake lay a boat in which a
-man sat fishing. Experience told the bird it was a fisherman, but here
-the bird was wrong. The man had a gun in the boat, and as the bird
-sailed upwards a shot was fired which compelled it to relinquish a part
-of its booty in order to escape more quickly.
-
-Grim was among the fortunate ones. Suddenly the crush in the long, dark
-channel grew less, and the sluggish stream of mud that was bearing her
-along changed its course. A little later the stream gathered furious
-pace and carried her with it; she saw light and felt space round her;
-she was able to move her fins.
-
-Then she fell from the heron's beak, from a height of about twenty
-yards. She had time to notice how suffocatingly dry the other world
-was. It seemed to draw out her entrails, and all her efforts to right
-herself were in vain.
-
-Then she regained her native element; water covered her gills, and she
-could begin to swim.
-
-
-
-
-II: IN THE SHELTER OF THE CREEK
-
-
-Grim was a year old when her scales began to grow.
-
-In her early youth, when she could only eat small creatures, she had
-lived exclusively upon water-insects and larvae; but from now onwards
-she had no respect for any flesh but that which clothed her own ribs.
-
-She attacked any fish that was not big enough to swallow _her_, and
-devoured bleak and small roach with peculiar satisfaction. Now she took
-her revenge on the voracious small fry that had offended her when she
-was still in an embryo state.
-
-She had not been hatched artificially, or come into the world in a
-wooden box with running water passing through it. No, the whole thing
-had taken place in the most natural manner.
-
-In the flickering sunshine of a March day, her mother, surrounded by
-three equally ardent wooers, had spawned, and the eggs had dropped and
-attached themselves to some tufts of grass at the edge of the lake. The
-very next day, however, little fish had begun to gather about those
-tufts; one day more, and there were swarms of them. Eagerly they
-searched the tufts and devoured all the eggs they could find; and so
-thoroughly did they go about their business, that of the thousands upon
-thousands of the mother's eggs, only two that had fallen into the heart
-of a grass-stalk were left.
-
-Out of one of these Grim had come. The sun had looked after her,
-hatched her out, and taught her to seize whatever came in her way. Now
-she was avenging the injuries to her tribe.
-
-She possessed a remarkable power of placing herself, and knew how to
-choose her position so as to disappear, as it were, in the water. The
-stalks of the reeds threw their shadows across her body in all
-directions; water-grass and drifting duck-weed veiled her; the silly
-roach and other restless little fish flitted about her, sometimes so
-close to her mouth that she could feel the waves made by their
-tail-fins. Some would almost run right into her; but when they saw her,
-then how the water flashed with starry gleams, and how quickly they all
-made off!
-
-She liked best to hide where the water-lilies floated in islands of
-green, for there the treacherous shadows--her best friends--fell
-clearly through the water; absorbed her, as it were, and made capture
-easy for her. If she found herself discovered, she would retreat with
-as little haste as possible; for that sort of thing aroused too much
-attention, and created widespread disturbance in the fishy world.
-
-If she lay on the surface, for instance, and suspected that she was
-being watched from above, she became, as it were, more and more
-indistinct and one with the dark water, letting herself sink
-imperceptibly, at the same time beginning to work all her fins. In
-ample folds they softly crept round the long stick that her body now
-resembled, fringed and veiled it and bore it away.
-
-And just as she knew how to place herself, so did she know how to
-move--cautiously and discreetly.
-
-Formerly she had measured only a finger's length, and now she was
-already about a foot long; her voraciousness had increased in a
-corresponding degree. She could eat every hour of the day. She would
-fill herself right up to the neck, and even have half a fish sticking
-out beyond. It was quite a common sight to see a little flapping
-fish-tail for which her digestive organs had not room as yet, sticking
-out of her mouth like a lively tongue. She would swim about
-delightedly, sucking it as a boy would suck a stick of candy.
-
-One day she was gliding slowly through a clump of rushes, as lifeless
-and dead as any stick. Her eyes seemed to be on stalks and spied
-eagerly round, but her body exhibited the least possible movement and
-eagerness.
-
-She turned, but even then holding herself stiff, and playing her new
-part of a drifting stick in a masterly manner. As she did so she
-discovered her brother, as promising a specimen of a young pike as
-herself, with all the distinguishing marks of the race.
-
-Although cold-blooded, she was of a fiery temperament, and as she was
-also hungry, she stared greedily and with cannibal feelings at the
-apparition. Her appetite grew in immeasurable units of time. The food
-was at hand, it stared her in the face; she forgot relationship and
-resemblance, and bending in the middle so that head and tail met, she
-seized her brother with a lightning movement.
-
-He was quite as big as she, struggled until he was unable to move a
-fin; but the stroke was successful.
-
-She began to understand things, and grew ever fiercer and more violent
-and voracious. Her teeth were doubled, and as they grew they were
-sharpened by the continual suction of the water through the gills. It
-was as if she understood their value, too, for she would often take up
-her position on the bottom and stir up grains of fine, hard sand, thus
-improving the grinding process considerably.
-
-It was mostly in the half-light that she now went hunting, in the early
-dawn or at dusk. Her sharp eyes could see in the dark like those of the
-owl and the cat. When the shadows lengthened, and the red glow from the
-sky spread over the water, she felt how favourable her surroundings
-were, and she became one with the power in her mighty nature.
-
-But in the daytime, she lay peacefully drowsing.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The creek in which she lived had low-lying banks.
-
-Among the short, thick grass, orchids and marsh marigolds bloomed side
-by side, and the ragged robin unfolded its frayed, deep pink flowers
-upon a stiff, dark brown stalk, that always had a mass of frothy
-wetness about its head.
-
-Farther out, the muddy water and horsetails began, and beyond them the
-tall, waving reeds, which stretched away in great clumps as far as it
-was possible for them to reach the bottom.
-
-Where _they_ left off, the round-stalked olive-green bog rushes began,
-wading farther and farther out, until in midstream they gathered in low
-clumps and groves, inhabited by an abundant insect life.
-
-Beautiful butterflies danced their bridal dance out there, some bright
-yellow with black borders, others with the sunset glow upon their
-wings. Dragon-flies and water-nymphs by the score refracted the sun's
-rays as they turned with a flash of all the colours of the rainbow.
-Black whirligigs lay in clusters and slept; and on the india
-rubber-like leaves of the water-lily, flies and wasps crawled about
-dry-shop, and refreshed themselves with the water.
-
-In the still, early morning the reeds sigh and tremble. The little
-yellowish grey sedge-warbler comes out suddenly from its hiding place,
-seizes the largest of the butterflies by the body, and as suddenly
-disappears again. A little later it begins its soft little sawing song,
-which blends so well with the perpetual, monotonous whispering of the
-reeds.
-
-Grim, down among the vegetation, only faintly catches the subdued
-tones; she is occupied with an event that is developing with great
-rapidity.
-
-A moth has fallen suddenly into the clear water. It tries to rise, but
-cannot, so darts rapidly across the surface of the water, dragging its
-tawny wings behind it. It puts forth its greatest speed, making in a
-straight line for the shore.
-
-But the whirligigs have seen the shipwreck, and dart out on their
-water-ski to tear the thing to pieces. They advance with the speed of a
-torpedo-boat, and in peculiar spiral windings. A wedge-shaped furrow
-stands out from the bow of each little pirate, and a tiny cascade in
-his wake.
-
-The poor moth becomes wetter and wetter, and less and less of his body
-remains visible as he exerts himself to reach the safety of the reeds,
-where he can climb up into a horse-tail and escape, just as a cat
-climbs into a tree to escape from a dog.
-
-Unfortunately he does not succeed; he is in a sinking condition, and
-one of the whirligigs fastens voraciously upon his hind quarters.
-
-The successful captor, however, is given no peace in which to devour
-his prey. He has to let it go, and seize it, and let it go again; and
-now a little fish--a bleak--begins to take a part in the play.
-
-The fluttering chase continues noiselessly across the surface of the
-water, and urged on by the whirligigs above and the bleak beneath, the
-moth approaches the reeds.
-
-With muscles relaxed and dorsal fin laid flat, Grim lies motionless at
-its edge, whence again and again she catches a glimpse of the little
-silvery fish.
-
-Its delicate body is fat outside and in, plump and well nourished, and
-to the eyes of the fratricide is an irresistible temptation, making her
-hunger creep out to the very tips of her teeth.
-
-Her dorsal fin opens out and is cautiously raised, while her eyes
-greedily watch the movements of the nimble little fish.
-
-Flash follows flash, each bigger and brighter than the other.
-
-Grim feels the excitement and ecstasy of the spoiler rush over her--all
-that immediately precedes possession of the spoil--and delights in the
-sensation. She begins to change from her stick-like attitude, and
-imperceptibly to bend in the middle.
-
-The plump little fish is too much engrossed in its moth-hunt.
-Unconcernedly it lets its back display a vivid, bright green lake-hue,
-while with its silvery belly it reflects all the rainbow colours of the
-water.
-
-Another couple of seconds and the prey is near.
-
-Then Grim makes her first real leap. It is successful. Ever since she
-was the length of a darning-needle, she had dreamt of this leap, dreamt
-that it would be successful.
-
-The sedge-warbler in the reedy island heard the splash, and the closing
-snap of the jaws. They closed with such firmness that the bird could
-feel, as it were, the helpless sigh of the victim, and the grateful
-satisfaction of the promising young pirate.
-
-She was the tiger of the water. She would take her prey by cunning and
-by craft, and by treacherous attack. She was seldom able to swim
-straight up to her food. How could she chase the nimble antelopes of
-the lake when, timid and easily startled, they were grazing on the
-plains of the deep waters; they discovered her before she got near them
-and could begin her leap!
-
-Huge herds were there for her pleasure. She had no need to exert
-herself, but could choose her quarry in ease and comfort. The larger
-its size, and the greater the hunger and lust for murder that she felt
-within her, the more violence and energy did she put into the leap. But
-just as the falcon may miss its aim, so might she, and it made her
-ashamed, like any other beast of prey; she did not repeat the leap, but
-only hastened away.
-
-But when her prey was struggling in her hundred-toothed jaws and
-slapping her on the mouth with its quivering tail-fin, then slowly, and
-with a peculiar, lingering enjoyment, she straightened herself out from
-her bent leaping posture. If she was hungry, she immediately swallowed
-her captive, but if not, she was fond, like the cat, of playing with
-her victim, swimming about with it in her mouth, twisting and turning
-it over, and chewing it for hours before she could make up her mind to
-swallow it.
-
-She ate, she stuffed herself; and with much eating she waxed great.
-
-
-
-
-III: GRIM GOES EXPLORING
-
-
-In the creek where she lived among rushes and reeds, a shoal of perch
-had their abode. They were scarcely as big as she, but much thicker and
-older. Their leader in particular, by whose movements the whole flock
-were guided, was a broad bellied high-backed fellow, who knew the value
-of the weapon of defence he possessed in his strong, spiny dorsal fin.
-
-He had a peculiar power of varying his colour so that it always suited
-the light in the water and on the bottom. There were days when he
-looked an emerald green, without any brassy tinge; at other times he
-let the black flickerings along his sides stand out like the stripes on
-a zebra's skin, and gave a brilliancy to his belly like that of the
-harvest moon. That was for fine weather. There was life in the water
-then!
-
-But common to them all were the rough, rasping scales that grew close
-up round the carroty-red fins, and the round yellow eyes with
-coal-black pupils, which seemed to rest on cushions and roll outside
-the head so that the fish could see both up and down.
-
-The perch were quite as rapacious as Grim herself; they poached upon
-her small-fish preserves, and often disturbed her in the chase. Had she
-only been equal to it, she would gladly have devoured some of them,
-too.
-
-One evening when she was so hungry that she under-estimated everything,
-she saw her chance of attacking their dark-hued leader, but _Rasper_,
-becoming aware of his dilemma, defended himself with the energy of a
-bulldog. The combat was on the point of turning in his favour, when
-Grim disappeared from view by taking a bold salmon-leap high into the
-air. After that they always swam scowling past one another at a
-respectful distance; but Grim was well aware that the striped swimmer
-had no friendly feeling towards her.
-
-As she grew bigger, and felt herself more and more the powerful despot,
-whose dental armature had been provided simply and solely for the
-purpose of biting others, her hatred of the high-backed one
-instinctively became greater. They were of such widely different
-natures!
-
-Grim was passionate, fierce, and reckless in her attacks, and gave
-herself up to the intoxicating pleasure of the chase until she grew
-dizzy. She ventured all, and lost herself in rapacious lust. The
-cunning perch seldom made a false step, but looked carefully ahead, and
-was always cool and self-restrained in his behaviour; and yet he was
-always ready--quite as ready as she--to attack, but had a masterly
-perception of the chances of success. He would frequently dart towards
-her, then suddenly stop and consider, and stand sniffing at her like a
-dog.
-
-She was still only a hobbledehoy, flabby and loose-jointed, and not
-quick enough in emergencies. She had only just found out where the
-great ones of her own species liked to post themselves, and where it
-behoved her, therefore, to be on her guard; but beyond this she was not
-burdened with much experience.
-
-As a young fish she had never been out into deep water, but wisely kept
-to the quiet parts--the channels and the broad waters of the creek,
-where her strength was proportionate to the exigencies of her
-surroundings, and where she instinctively felt that her great enemies
-would run aground if they pursued her. Here she found shelter among the
-reeds and the rushes.
-
-But there was something beyond; something great and strong, something
-always disquieting; and this attracted her.
-
-She began to go farther and farther afield, and one day, when the water
-was especially bright and clear, she set out on a journey from one end
-of the lake to the other.
-
-The bottom of the creek was fertile, hilly country. Long slopes,
-clothed with water-lily plants, and laden with yard-high, round-stalked
-grass, ran out in parallel chains, framing, as it were, a corresponding
-stretch of broad, deep valleys. Here and there were steep narrows,
-passes through which the shoals of fish had to venture when going from
-one pasture to another.
-
-She swam just below the surface of the water, and looked with interest
-at the varied scenery of the bottom and all the unfamiliar and strange
-things that presented themselves. How delightful it was to let herself
-go and give her fins free play!
-
-She reached a rocky reef, and swam over a group of high, wild mountains
-that rose steeply out of the black bottom ooze with rugged sides,
-wooded in parts, and in others barren and naked. The mountains were
-full of deep ravines, the ice of centuries of winters' freezing of the
-bottom had furrowed them with crests and clefts, planed off the points
-of the summits, and formed rounded tops or plateaux.
-
-Here and there in this rocky land with its numerous winding inlets and
-sharp corners, a conspicuous stump stuck up. Several of them had a ring
-at one end, and from a few waved a bit of rope. In the course of time
-they had dropped down from the other world. They were lost boat-hooks
-and anchors that had become hopelessly fixed; for the rocky reef was a
-good fishing-ground.
-
-There were many crayfish in the lake, and Grim, as she swam, had a
-bird's-eye view of them walking about, swarming over the bottom of the
-lake in all directions, laboriously measuring out the kilometres in
-crayfish steps.
-
-In several places there were whole towns of them, and in the
-perpendicular cliffs on the deep side of the reef, there was a large
-crayfish population. Here she noticed certain specimens, larger than
-she cared about. They lay in wait among the rocks or in the depths of
-the primeval forest, and caught what fish they could in their deadly
-claws. Or they ran backwards through the water with claws and feelers
-extended, step by step and with a beat of the tail; if the waves they
-set up had not warned her in time, they might have run into her at any
-moment.
-
-From the reef she passed on over a great sandy desert, where the worms
-lay in rings, and the fresh-water mussels in colonies. She came upon
-some unpretending and not very luxuriant plants with swinging stalks
-that could turn with the current and the waves; but what struck her
-most, and broke the monotony more than anything else, was the skeleton
-remains of animals, boats, and a few human beings, that lay scattered
-about.
-
-Where the substratum of the rocky reef still extended under the sand
-without disappearing altogether, she saw these slowly-perishing remains
-of the meteors from the air-world, lying scoured and clean as on a
-tray. In the eyeholes of the skulls the crayfish sheltered when they
-rested on their long journey over these perilous wastes, and perch
-lurked in the shadow of the ribs.
-
-Farther out, where current and drifting sand alternately had the
-mastery, things were incessantly being uncovered and reburied; and in
-the middle of the desert waste, where there were quicksands, sometimes
-an arm would project from the sand-dunes, sometimes a leg, or the
-frontal bone of a skull bearing a huge pair of horns, or the prow of a
-boat. Finally, the desert ended in a whole skeleton reef--the remains
-of a drove of animals that a dozen years before had lost their way in
-the drifting snow and the dark, taken a short cut over the ice, and
-fallen through.
-
-Once beyond this, the fertile bottom, with black soil, plants and
-little fish, began again. Then came a new, high-lying land, not stony
-and rough like the first, but rich and luxuriant. It lay outside a
-projecting point of land, of which it formed the natural continuation
-under the water.
-
-On each side of the point a long creek stretched far inland, the
-scenery under the water being a repetition of that above. A luxuriance
-and fertility was visible on all sides; the water-grass waved in
-stretches like corn in the fields, and the giant growths of the
-water-forests were like the shady trees on land.
-
-On the dividing-line between these fertile regions and the sterile
-tracts where, on stormy days when the waves ran deep, the drifting sand
-laid bare old, fish-gnawed skeletons, or covered up new ones, there was
-a big slough, which formed the beginning of a low-lying, wide-spreading
-bog, in which the sources of the lake had their origin.
-
-There was always movement in the vegetation here. The mud rose and fell
-as if waves were passing beneath it. Now and then the surface opened,
-and jets of water as thick as tree-trunks shot into the air. There were
-high and low jets, forming, as it were, trees and bushes of water,
-which sometimes burst into bloom with large, strange-hued, fantastic
-blossoms of foam and bubbles.
-
-In this slough lived the hermit of the lake, the giant sheat-fish _Oa_,
-a scaleless, dark, slimy monster, which only on rare occasions,
-generally in stormy weather, rose from her mudbed and revealed herself
-to human eyes. Generally, she moved about on the bottom, living her
-lonely life of plunder where the law of gravitation ultimately brought
-everything that was no longer able to swim or float about.
-
-Centuries earlier, pious men had brought her progenitor, wrapped in wet
-grass, here to the lake, and planted the family of _Silurus_ outside
-their cloister walls, so that its oily, digestible flesh could serve
-them as a good dish for fast-days.
-
-The experiment was only moderately successful, and this hardy old fish
-was the last of her race.
-
-Oa had the body of an eel, but was as long and thick as a boa
-constrictor. If she were ever caught, and placed upon a wagon, her tail
-would hang out beyond even the longest wagon-perch.
-
-Her head was large and squat, with a huge shark's mouth and small,
-blinking eyes. Six long, worm-like barbels, whose ends curled and
-twisted, hung from the corners of her mouth; she felt her way with them
-as she sedately crawled over the muddy bottom. She had neither neck nor
-breast, but her capacious stomach hung down immediately behind her
-gullet, like that of an old sow. It was always distended, and
-apparently so heavy that its owner's back was quite bent.
-
-Oa was a sinister-looking skulker in dark places, a terror to every
-poor fish that had been injured and could no longer swim nimbly about.
-
-Like a moss-grown tree-stump she lies buried in the mud when the still
-inexperienced Grim swims in among the bottom springs, and again and
-again unwittingly passes over her scaleless, dull green body. She is
-quite invisible, only the two longest of her barbels projecting from
-the mud, and incessantly curling and bending like two earth-worms
-hastily making for the bottom at the approach of an enemy.
-
-Grim, who is always in want of food and cannot resist delicacies,
-swoops down like a falcon at sight of the "worms," without noticing the
-watchful gleam in the two little amber-coloured stones that lie
-quivering on the muddy bottom. She snaps eagerly at the nearest "worm,"
-but it escapes her by adroitly rolling itself up.
-
-The active little pike is still too far off the big pirate's teeth; it
-must be enticed nearer, so that she can be certain when she strikes.
-
-Grim does not respond to the invitation, however, but prefers to try
-the other "worm," and when that, too, with a rapidity unusual in a
-worm, curls up into a ball and goes to the bottom, she instinctively
-grows suspicious, and sets her tail-screw going, just as the cunning
-water-hyena throws off its mask of mud, and makes a wild dash at her.
-
-[Illustration: "She snaps eagerly at the nearest 'worm,' but it escapes
-her by adroitly curling up."]
-
-Grim flees precipitately--so terrified that her cold blood almost
-stiffens--and darts out of the black cloud that Oa in her eagerness has
-raised.
-
-The entire hollow seems alive now; everything is gliding and rocking,
-everything is moving beneath her; she seems to be swimming in black
-darkness with an angry, gaping, sucking mouth close behind her. She has
-to keep up full speed with her tail, and to paddle with all her fins,
-fore and aft, to avoid being drawn in.
-
-When the water begins to clear, and daylight returns, she finds herself
-in the middle of a shoal of gay little fish, which, at her sudden
-appearance among them, scatter like a flock of starlings at the dart of
-a sparrow-hawk down among them. She feels the seething and boiling from
-the quick flapping of tiny tails; and involuntarily she goes with them,
-swimming away as quickly as the most nimble of the shoal, to a large,
-wide-spreading island of reeds.
-
-Here Grim remained for a month, during which time she calmed down, and
-came to a full understanding of her own cruel, voracious nature.
-
-One day, when she was proceeding along the border of her new beat, she
-came upon some precipitous cliffs, standing stone upon stone straight
-up from the bottom, full of holes and openings. She swam into large,
-slimy-green caverns and lofty grottos. It was the ruin of the old
-monastery she had found.
-
-For the present she dared not venture back across the lake. The
-encounter with Oa had given her a feeling that dangers lurked out in
-the deep water, to which she was by no means equal. She turned into the
-nearest creek, and lost herself in a series of large reed-forests.
-Through them she went on into the bay until the world around her grew
-narrower and narrower, the surface of the water and the bottom
-approached one another, and the dreaded element in which she could not
-breathe made known its superior force by many loud sounds.
-
-Here a great fringe of forest encircled the lake, and Grim turned
-headlong back.
-
-
-
-
-IV: THE MARAUDERS
-
-
-Borne on a gentle breeze, a large crane-fly comes sailing out of the
-wood. It likes to cool its long legs, as it flies, by trailing them
-along the surface of the water. The whirligigs are after it, but it
-easily avoids them. Then comes a sudden surprise: a fish pops up its
-mouth, and closes its scissor-jaws with a snap on the insect's legs,
-and it disappears in the centre of a rocking series of rings.
-
-The lake is perfectly calm, its green-black surface smooth and shining,
-and full of drifting summer clouds. The reeds are reflected in it and
-look double their height, and the trees mirror their branches there,
-seeming twice as leafy; and a red house with a white flagstaff on one
-of the banks becomes quite a little submarine palace.
-
-More crane-flies arrive, and circle after circle breaks the stillness
-of the water, just as mole-hills break the uniform smoothness of the
-meadow, as fishes' mouths dart up by the score side by side.
-
-It is in one of the valleys in the submarine mountainous region that
-this shoal of thousands of bleak lies. It covers the area of a
-market-place, and makes the water alive for fathoms down.
-
-On the one side rises the forest of weed, like a fir-forest on a
-Norwegian mountain; on the other the thick green water-grass waves and
-bends like the corn on some fertile plain in Hungary. In front and
-behind, the valley winds on between the hill-sides until it widens out
-and finally loses itself in the barren, sandy desert.
-
-Suddenly, at the end of the neighbouring valley, the water seethes and
-foams. It is cleft incessantly from bottom to surface, bubbles rise and
-whirlpools are formed, and a long strip of lake foams and spurts.
-
-It is not like a single large animal darting forward with rapidly
-twisting tail, and leaving a wake and waves behind it; but a general
-effervescence that makes the depths gleam with millions of scales.
-
-It is the perch, the marauders of the lake, on a hunting expedition!
-
-They go together in a large company, like soldiers in an army, rows of
-them above, beside, and behind one another. There are hundreds upon
-hundreds of them, and yet a single unit.
-
-With their uppermost layer only a couple of inches below the surface of
-the water they hasten on. Then all turn at once, changing from the
-long, narrow marching column into compact formation. A fresh signal,
-inaudible, imperceptible to all but themselves, and once more, in a
-trice, the narrow, smoothly-gliding hunting-column is reformed.
-
-Just as they twist and turn in the horizontal plane, so do they in the
-vertical. They go suddenly and headlong from the surface to the depths,
-spinning out from their compact mass a long, living thread.
-
-And the thread becomes longer and longer, and thinner and thinner,
-while they pass through one of the narrows in the submarine mountainous
-region.
-
-It is the shoal of bleak they are after. Now they are in the valley
-where it lies.
-
-The lively little freshwater herring as yet suspect no danger; they are
-in constant motion, occupied in snapping up the fallen, half-drowned
-insects. Noses are pushed up, and little thimble-like mouths open; the
-water streams in, and with it the food. An eager interchange from
-bottom to surface goes on; for when the upper layer is satiated, it
-likes to enjoy its feeling of well-being in peace, until voracity once
-more makes them all rivals.
-
-The splash of the waves on the surface lifts the gluttons up and down,
-while the ground-swell rocks the satiated to rest.
-
-The perch have quickened their pace; involuntarily the speed is
-increased; they already scent their prey.
-
-Foremost of the company, with a dark-golden, high-backed leader at
-their head, swim a couple of hundred of the finest perch. They are at
-their strongest age, and in best possible condition, suffering neither
-from too great a weight of fatness, nor from the nervous lassitude of
-insufficient nourishment. They lead, and with frolicsome eagerness push
-past one another, so as to be the first to arrive.
-
-After them comes the great mass of the horde, big, heavily-laden craft,
-their round backs and swelling bellies testifying to their success in
-their toil for material needs. There are perch among them of half an
-arm's-length, and the thickness of the biggest of wrists. Sheaves of
-silvery-gleaming rays flicker far out in their wake.
-
-The rest of the fierce horde are large and small mingled--hundreds of
-perch of half-a-pound's weight, and rank upon rank of others well over
-two pounds.
-
-For the present the whole flock keeps to the bottom, darting along with
-dorsal fin erect, the stiff spines bristling menacingly. It is as well
-to have bayonets fixed in case of the sudden appearance of a pike.
-
-All at once the van slips away from the rest, and the latter have to
-exert themselves to catch up, twisting and turning their tails, and
-unfurling the stiff sail of their dorsal fin. There must be nothing now
-to check their speed; fair-weather sailing is over, and the
-privateering expedition has begun.
-
-The certainty of booty fills them all.
-
-The vanguard has led the marauders well; they have come _under_ their
-prey, and now shoot up among the unfortunate, unsuspecting bleak. All
-order among the assailants instantly ceases, and each member thinks
-only of its own mouth, and cares for nothing but getting it filled.
-
-Like yellow flashes of water-lightning the perch dart into the shoal of
-little fish, and like grain among a flock of chickens, masses of bleak
-disappear into their mouths. They kill and devour--and it will be still
-worse when the rear-guard comes up.
-
-Now they arrive, and the alarm in the swarm of bleak below spreads with
-magical swiftness to the upper layers, where the bewildered little
-creatures make off at full speed. Gleam after gleam flashes up as the
-little shining fish, uncertain of their way, twist and turn about. Each
-makes itself as long and thin as it can, so as to show as little as
-possible, and disappear, as it were, in the water.
-
-But now the fierce horde becomes still fiercer. The rear-guard
-overtakes the fugitives and cuts off their retreat; and smack after
-smack is heard after their charge.
-
-The swarm of bleak scatters in wild panic. Thousands of them, in their
-terror, make for the surface, leaping into the air like jets from a
-fountain. They tumble over one another and try in their bewilderment
-which can leap highest and farthest. They rise like flying-fish out of
-the water with a flash, and once more disappear with a splash into the
-water. There is a splash when they rise, and a splash when they again
-reach the surface of the water; making a sound like the falling of
-torrents of rain.
-
-Hell is beneath them in the water! The yellow devils not only menace
-them from the side; they come upon them from all directions. When they
-descend in crowds from their flight into the air, they grow stiff with
-terror on finding themselves face to face with great, amber eyes that
-seem starting out of their sockets to go greedily hunting on their own
-account. Then a mouth opens, shoots out a pair of concertina-like lips,
-and changes into a funnel; and the poor little fish disappear into a
-chasm, like threads into a vacuum cleaner.
-
-Above the spot a cloud of terns is circling. They fly low with
-half-extended legs and drooping wings, ready to dart down. Sometimes
-they make a catch, sometimes miss their aim, but have the good fortune
-to take a fish that inadvertently appears close by; indeed the bleak
-often leap straight into the birds' open beak. The birds hold them at
-all sorts of angles in their beak, and fly away with them, shrieking
-and screaming, pursued by their fellows.
-
-Poor little bleak! they were so pretty to look at. An emerald green
-colour extended from the back right over the head and nose; and the
-rims of their eyes when they blinked could sparkle and shine like the
-gem itself. Their shining breast was whiter than a swan's, and their
-plump sides gleamed and sparkled like ice under a wintry moon.
-
-But from the time they left their Creator's hand they were intended to
-serve as food for _others_.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-A boat lay anchored a few hundred yards off. In it was an elderly man.
-
-An angler this. He had been out since early morning, and had a
-delightful day.
-
-Not a single bite. But what did that matter?
-
-He was lying now at the bottom of the boat, dreaming.
-
-He was a regular visitor to the lake. His ancestors' love of a free,
-out-of-door life had entered into his blood.
-
-It is well known that it takes three generations to make a gentleman;
-but it would take three times as many to create, out of a race that
-ever since the morning of time had lived out of doors, a generation
-that did not care to handle either gun or rod.
-
-In his youth his gun had been his best friend; but the chase demands
-much of legs and muscles and heart. When a man is no longer in his
-prime, he should beware of paying ardent court to Dame Diana. In her
-suite--it is useless to deny it--the old man is seldom looked upon with
-favour: he has had his day. But Father Neptune clasps him rapturously
-in his wet embrace, and sets the fish around his boat leaping and
-playing.
-
-It was thus in his later years that his fishing rod had become the old
-man's joy and companion.
-
-Season after season he made his weekly journey from town by rail, and
-then drove out to the lake. He fished in the good old-fashioned way,
-talked very little, and was always alone in the boat.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The weather to-day, from a fisherman's point of view, is the worst
-possible. The July sun is shining hotly, and sends its beams deep down
-into the water.
-
-The lake slumbers. There is a bottle-green hue above the deep water,
-and a lilac shade in the shallows; but over the sandy bottom the colour
-is drab. Far off a flock of wild ducks rising raise some little, gentle
-waves, that look so blue, so blue!
-
-The angler, who is a big, sturdy man with large, black-rimmed
-spectacles upon his voluminous nose, is in his customary
-fishing-dress--an old straw hat with an elastic under the chin, his
-coat off, and no collar, on his legs a pair of thick, yellowish brown
-moleskin trousers, his feet in a pair of felt shoes, lined with straw.
-
-He generally stays all day, and it is still far from evening.
-
-He is now lying outstretched in midday drowsiness, enjoying the great
-peace that rests on the lake. He has wound the ends of his lines round
-his wrist; he waits patiently, and if towards evening he is fortunate
-enough to haul in a pike, he will be filled with a quiet, intense joy.
-
-Suddenly he awakes with a start. He hears a rushing sound like that of
-the paddles of a distant steamer striking and tearing the water; he
-sees the terns flocking, and the surface of the water broken again and
-again by bleak leaping high into the air. He takes up his anchor, and
-rows up until he hears the smack, smack of the greedy perch all round
-him, and knows he is in the middle of the whirlpool of fish.
-
-He gets four lines clear, and has enough to do in throwing them out and
-pulling them in. He throws off his hat and waistcoat, and loosens his
-belt--but even then he is drenched with perspiration.
-
-At last he can do no more, and drops exhausted on to a thwart.
-
-In less than twenty minutes he has caught more than fifty perch,
-weighing from one to three pounds apiece; they are lying in a brassy
-heap in the boat.
-
-Then he opens his wallet, takes out the bottle containing clear liquid,
-and takes a nip. This he is accustomed to do every time he catches a
-fish of any importance. He drinks to the health of the lake, the lake
-with the fresh waves and the clear, bright water--the lake that
-treasures his dearest memories.
-
-
-
-
-V: THE PEARLY FISH
-
-
-Between a cloudy sky and rough water the wind tore through reeds and
-rushes.
-
-Grim was lurking at the edge of the bottom vegetation; she had not seen
-fish-food since the previous evening.
-
-There is a splash in front of her, a broad foot is pushed obliquely
-down into the water and forces a large, heavy "swimming-bird" past her.
-
-A little later there is a sudden gleam. A small fugitive of a fish
-darts past as though taking advantage of the wake of the big bird, from
-one reedy shelter to another.
-
-Grim has already eaten so many bleak and roach that they are beginning
-to be everyday fare; and now, there goes a new kind of food, a fish
-that shines all red and green and blue and black, with large,
-glittering, beady eyes!
-
-At a distance she follows the tit-bit that swims through the water like
-no other fish, turning incessantly round and round on its own axis.
-
-How hard it works! there is a bright starry light all round it, and its
-tail-fin quivers behind in a long thick trail.
-
-She cannot look at it unmoved. "After it!" say her eyes; "after it!"
-echoes her empty stomach.
-
-She does not succeed in seizing it across as she generally does, but
-has to swim up and swallow it from behind in one mouthful.
-
-It is a curiously sharp-spined little fish! Now that she has it in her
-mouth, it is not nearly so tempting to her palate as it was before her
-eyes. Well, she has taken the trouble to catch it, so down it shall go!
-
-She cannot get it to move in her mouth; it will not stir! She takes a
-firmer hold, turns with it, and hastens back into her hiding place.
-
-Then it begins to bite her in the throat! And now--she becomes quite
-uneasy--her throat suddenly tries to go the opposite way to her tail!
-What can be the matter?
-
-She forcibly sets her teeth into her refractory captive, when suddenly
-she is pulled over.
-
-How strange! The simple little pearly fish takes the form of a master,
-and drags her after it through the water; no matter how much she tries
-to back, no matter what powerful strokes she makes to force it to obey
-her will, she is obliged to yield and go with it. Her brain is
-bursting; she cannot comprehend this powerlessness: the fish is in her
-mouth and on its way down her throat, and yet it is dragging her along
-with it.
-
-No! _No!_ And she sets to work and lashes the water into foam with her
-tail; but the little pearly fish is inexorable; it is too strong for
-her.
-
-There must be some strange witchcraft about it all!
-
-Instead of her swimming away with it, here it goes swimming away with
-her, and on they go, nearer and nearer up towards the light and the
-surface, which she instinctively shuns. All at once the pearly fish
-leaps into the air with her. She wants to let go, to spit it out, but
-she is too late; for the moment she is not quite conscious.
-
-Her eyes ache; she feels as if they would jump out of her head. Her
-sight is gone, and a bright red mist surrounds her. She tries to swim,
-but cannot get her balance; she tries to strike with her tail in order
-to escape, but the water round her offers no resistance.
-
-A suffocating feeling seems suddenly to contract her gills; she cannot
-open them far enough. She opens her mouth to let water in, but only
-swallows dry wind.
-
-The next moment she is lying floundering in a boat, and then a human
-hand takes her up.
-
-"A pickerel! undersized!" mutters the angler. And he carefully takes
-out the revolving bait and weighs the fish in his hand. Alas! not even
-a miserable two pounds!
-
-He takes out his sheath-knife and marks her dorsal fin; and then, in
-the hope of finding favour with the gods on account of his magnanimity,
-and catching the fish again at some future time, he tosses her over the
-side of the boat, and Grim is given back to life.
-
-It was much the same feeling as when she was ejected from the heron's
-throat; her intestines seem bursting, and her breath to be leaving her.
-Then she reaches the water, where she lies floating on her side, and
-slowly wakens as though from a long fit of unconsciousness.
-
-And in a trice she has disappeared into the depths.
-
-Her suspicion was aroused. The world was full of villainies, more than
-those that she herself committed!
-
-Twilight was falling.
-
-The sun's fiery columns, that stood obliquely over the lake, suddenly
-separated and flowed out, their glowing fragments lying like burning
-oil upon the surface of the water. Then they were gradually
-extinguished; the darkness of evening shed its deep blue tones over
-them.
-
-Long and black, the shadows crept out from the banks; the little fish
-made their way in to the shelter of the reeds, and the pursuing pike
-went to rest. And while the surface still sparkled with a peculiar
-mother-of-pearl brilliancy, the darkness of night already brooded
-closely beneath the water.
-
-As quietly as a snail, a little crayfish was crawling over the bottom;
-but it was more watchful than a polecat, and listened and felt its way
-carefully. It came out from the rocky reef, and was now on its way over
-the sandy plain in to the nearest bank.
-
-_Nipper_ was a robber, encased in coat of mail; he spared nothing that
-he thought he was big enough to overcome. A sharp, serrated dagger
-projected above his jaws, and the pincers of his large claws were
-half-open, ready to fasten upon the unwary prey.
-
-He was a young crayfish, no longer than the span of a child's hand, and
-with a tail no broader than a finger. His eyes were stalked, and the
-long, wide-straddling feeling carefully searched the bottom for more
-than a body's length in advance. The half-closed claws scraped over
-rocks and water-lily roots in their efforts to drag the mailed body
-along.
-
-Suddenly there was a shock to his feelers. Nipper suspected danger, and
-struck with his tail; and at once beginning to go backwards, he
-hastily, with his front claws, stirred up a cloud of mud all round him.
-Step by step, long and rapid, he hastened, without changing his
-direction, back through the water.
-
-It was only a false alarm, however; there was no otter or
-water-rat--its worst enemies--close to the tips of it claws. It might
-take things quietly, and safely set about its search for nocturnal prey
-again. It stopped beating the water with its tail, and with extended
-claws and tail outspread, it let itself sink slowly through the water.
-
-Sedately and circumspectly, and with extreme caution, he felt his way
-before advancing over the bottom of the lake on his clawed legs.
-
-Nipper was descended from an old "backslider" that had been a monster
-of the order of Decapoda, and had at last become so fat and heavy that
-she could hardly swim, and preferred to crawl about. Like the rest of
-her species, she had espoused a new male crayfish every other year; the
-wedding generally took place in November, when out-of-door pleasures
-were few, and everything, even the water, was cold and grey.
-
-When the happy honeymoon was over, she always suddenly broke off all
-relations with her spouse, and withdrew into one of the roomiest of the
-numerous deep, dark, basement flats through the winter, waiting for the
-sun and the white water-lilies to bring out her little children.
-
-And they came!
-
-Next summer a swarm of little creatures crept out of the eggs that
-adhered in scores to her tail. From their birth they had tiny claws, a
-tiny rostrum, and tiny feelers; and they were all an exact copy of
-_him_. Holding fast with one claw to their mother's poorly-developed
-caudal legs, they hung as to a strap, while with the other claw they
-fought among themselves as much as possible.
-
-It was a little world of malice, cannibal cruelty, and good, healthy
-egoism that the old monster thereafter dragged about with her, and she
-defended it--to her praise it must be said--on every occasion against
-the violence and malice of the outside world, by interposing her own
-body.
-
-Half without will of her own and unconsciously, she kept life in her
-young. Every time she required food and drew it forward under her body,
-the baby crayfish got a bit of it. On such occasions they let go of one
-another, and struck out with his free claw, and hastily transferred the
-morsel to his mouth.
-
-Nipper had hung to one of the outside "straps" and he was with his
-mother on the night she went into a crayfish trap. He let go the strap
-in order to cram himself with both hands, and he did succeed in
-producing a feeling of extraordinary satiety; but when the trap was
-suddenly hauled up, he was not quick enough in taking hold again; the
-water drew him with it, and washed him out through the wide-meshed net.
-In this way he lost the shelter that in the natural order of things he
-could still have reckoned on beneath the caudal fan of his great
-parent; but fate had nevertheless been kind to him. While old Madam
-Nipper, boiled red like a lobster and with lettuce round her tail, lay
-that evening curled up on a dish, her little nipper was surrounded with
-all the wonders of life; and he went at them with greedy claws and
-flapping tail. It was not for nothing that he had been born with the
-art of going backwards.
-
-He had now lived through three winters, and was therefore not
-altogether lacking in experience of life. He had successfully passed
-the age in which his growth of no more than a few weeks made each
-jacket-sleeve and trouser-leg too short, and had gone through nearly a
-score of those dreadful "metamorphoses." They were terrible bouts, real
-illnesses that cost both toil and suffering. The last was still fresh
-in his memory. He had suddenly become uneasy, could not even rest in
-his hole. It was the same with them all; the same unrest seized upon
-all the inhabitants of the crayfish-town that extended over the rocky
-reef. None of them any longer ventured out at sunset; they remained
-indoors. Then the illness began with an irresistible desire to scrape
-and rub oneself. It was impossible to hold out against it; one had to
-let it go its way and follow a certain system.
-
-The "system" commenced with some wild movements of arms and legs.
-Resting on the carapace and the big claws, the hind part of the body
-was raised, and the tail spread, and then the thighs, legs, and ankles
-were worked until a hole was made in the old, armour-like skin, and it
-split up length-wise.
-
-The transformation took days, so one had to sleep now and then, and
-rest often. Food there was none.
-
-One started up out of sleep, unable to rest for fear of being left in
-the old skin and dying of starvation. Nothing for it but to go on, and
-try to get over this most unpleasant process of moulting as quickly as
-possible.
-
-Nipper, who was endowed with all the courage and impatience of youth,
-was one of the most eager to push on the business. He quickly got rid
-of the armour-plates on his legs, and was now working to get out of his
-tight coat-of-mail, throwing himself on his back, and rubbing himself
-backwards and forwards upon the floor.
-
-The coat-of-mail has already come away from the trouser-band, and he
-can raise it from his body; he presses its stiff edges against a stone,
-while he works himself backwards out of the old crayfish-case. First he
-carefully releases both his stalked eyes, then come the feelers, and
-then the big claws. Oh, but it hurts! And he shakes and twists himself,
-sweating with exertion and anxiety. After all, it is going confoundedly
-fast! Suppose a limb got into a tangle, or a joint refused to move!
-Then it would break, as he very well knows: that kind of thing is a
-part of the crayfish system!
-
-At last the whole thing was accomplished, and he felt stronger and
-freer than ever. This evening he would kill! This evening he would eat
-his fill!
-
-The darkness grew deeper The sinister shadows were already darkening
-the banks, and the deep water, which before had shone with gleaming
-mother-of-pearl, seemed now leaden-grey. There was not a water-lily
-leaf to be seen on the surface; it was impossible to distinguish a
-single green stalk.
-
-Down on the soft mud, beneath a rotten, wrinkled tree-stump, sat a
-fresh-water mussel with its shells half-open. As the round feelers of
-the crayfish came gliding tentatively round its foot, it became aware
-of the approach of an enemy, and had already almost closed its
-broadly-gaping shells when Nipper, at the last moment, managed to
-introduce the end of one of his broad pincers, like the heel of a boot
-in a door. The mussel worked its hardest, straining till its shells
-creaked and splinters actually broke off in its efforts to crush the
-hard armour-plating of the claw.
-
-Nipper lay as though petrified in front of his victim, and let the
-mussel exhaust itself while he watched his opportunity to drive his
-unimpressionable wedge farther and farther in. He had the patience of
-Job, and knew that he only had to wait.
-
-It was not long before he had succeeded in making room for his other
-claw, and now he was cutting and picking at the body of the poor
-mussel, one claw holding the pearly shells sufficiently wide apart for
-the other to convey dainty pieces of mussel-flesh to his mouth.
-
-At last the poor mussel's strength is quite exhausted. It gives up, and
-Nipper's head and the front part of his body disappear inside the
-shell.
-
-Nipper remained there the first part of the night, cramming himself,
-but at last could not help regretting that a mussel went such a little
-way. He took a short rest, and then towards morning set out confidently
-in search of more.
-
-Unfortunately there were no sleepy, unprepared mussels to surprise; but
-behind some stones in one of the deep, submarine mountain passes stood
-a solitary fish, which had apparently got out of its course.
-
-The quiet little Nipper had not much experience regarding the way in
-which a crayfish catches fish; he was more accustomed to snails and
-mussels. He could also seize a younger comrade in his claws, and suck
-him dry, leaving nothing but his coat and trousers; but the finned
-animal, with fans on back, belly, and tail, the nimblest of all--how
-did one catch it?
-
-He slyly pushes through a crack at the bottom of the cave, raises
-himself on the points of his closed claws, and blinks with his
-diverging eyes. He has turned back his feelers so that they shall not
-betray him while he is investigating his immediate surroundings.
-
-Grim is standing motionless with her head towards the current, leaving
-her forked tail to keep her, with slight movements, on the same spot.
-She is tired and exhausted after her long struggle with the pearly
-fish, and feeling rather languid and out of sorts. Her lacerated mouth
-hurts every time she opens it to rinse it with fresh water. She has,
-therefore, sought shelter in the rocky cave to compose herself and
-recover.
-
-Something quivers along her breast and cautiously pricks her sides and
-belly. It must be a waving grass-stalk!
-
-Then a gradually-increasing, continuous pressure is suddenly felt round
-the thick part of her tail.
-
-With a sudden movement of her body she tries to shake off the supposed
-reed, but at the same moment the pressure is felt like a bite from the
-hard, sharp-edged beak of a heron. She struggles and writhes, and warps
-herself out of the cave; and now she flies, fin-winged, through the
-water.
-
-Nipper is hanging to her stern. He has only hold with one claw, but
-hopes to get the other, which he is waving about, also applied. His
-tail-fan works incessantly.
-
-Grim drags at full speed over stock and stone, and swings him out of
-one gyration into another; through reed-beds and undergrowth, and far,
-far into the forest of water-weed; but he hangs on still!
-
-He feels, however, that his prize is rather more than he can manage.
-There is no time left for him to pick at the fish's flesh with his
-other claw; he was growing quite dizzy, for he was not accustomed to
-going _forward_ at such a pace!
-
-Then he stretches out his free claw to seize hold of a root, and thus
-try to chain his captive to the bottom.
-
-But the trick does not succeed. The jerk that follows is so violent
-that he loses his claw!
-
-He has now lost his chance, and lets go.
-
-Grim feeling herself relieved of his weight, and free in her movements,
-darts away with the speed of a run-away engine. In addition to the
-soreness of her mouth, she now has a pain in her tail. She will need
-some time to recover from both.
-
-Things had gone against her, and to tell the truth she did not think
-there was much fun in being a fish; but then she had to learn her
-lesson, and once bitten, twice shy, both in and above the water.
-
-The recollection of the strange little pearly fish long remained in her
-memory. Its stiff body, and continual turning about its own dorsal fin,
-without a single stroke of the tail, were long imprinted on her mind;
-and whenever afterwards the "tit-bit" appeared, her wounded mouth
-assured her voracious stomach that it was wiser to refrain.
-
-
-
-
-VI: THE MAN-ROACH
-
-
-Years went by; and Grim grew into a splendid fish. Her long, flat
-forehead was now continued straight into the strong duck-like beak of
-the upper jaw. A hollow in the middle enabled it, as it were, to
-project in canopies that hung down over her eyes, which thus acquired
-an expression even more cruel and scowling.
-
-The cheeks stood perpendicularly on each side of the forehead, and
-enclosed the cranium as between walls; it was as though she had had a
-dent on both sides of her head. The back of her neck swelled up like
-that of a bull, for here the muscles lay over the cranium in large,
-thick curves, until down by the neck, they gave place each to its
-branchial cleft, which was as large as a barn door.
-
-And what a mouth! It opened up far past the eyes! Generally, it only
-stood ajar; but to look into it when it opened wide was like looking
-into a barrel studded with nails.
-
-In the front of the lower jaw, the teeth stood thick as pins in a
-pincushion. They were small and pointed, and sloped backwards, so that
-they served as barbs. In along the sides came the long,
-widely-separated incisors, whose purpose was to enter into and hold
-fast the prey. They were more than half an inch in length, rounded and
-blunt, and resembled the teeth of a rake.
-
-The upper jaw was provided with a far more terrible armature. Whole
-rows of harrow-like teeth stood out, making a diabolical grater of the
-palate. They continued far down the throat, and even came forward over
-the tongue. Woe to the body that became jammed here! It was only
-released as mince-meat.
-
-But the throat that swallowed the victim was by far the most horrible
-contrivance.
-
-It resembled the drawn-up mouth of a sack. Down through it lay great
-rolls of swallowing-muscles, studded with grasping protuberances. In
-the midst of them the oesophagus was discernible, its aperture
-incessantly opening and closing with a suction that inexorably drew
-everything down with it.
-
-And her external equipment corresponded to her internal. The wonderful,
-dark colours of the shallows drew a broad stripe along her great back.
-About the forehead and along the back of the neck, the water-grasses
-had laid a ground-wash of their own deep green; and her sides were
-veiled by the flickering streaks of the reed-beds. Patches of gold,
-like the sunshine falling through the glassy surface of the water,
-shone out between the transverse stripes on her sides; and over the
-branchial arch and the belly lay the pure whiteness of the water-lily.
-
-Yes, she was adorned in all her splendour. Her scales gleamed with the
-rays of the sun and moon; and when, with the rapidity of lightning, she
-made a dart, it seemed like the twinkling of stars in the dark night of
-the deep waters.
-
-From this time onwards, her voracity knew no bounds. The desire for
-food, which she had possessed from her earliest days, and which had
-lain like a germ in the very heart of her nature, was given free play
-by means of the terrible weapons that Nature had placed at her
-disposal. No one else should now get a bite; she would be alone in
-clearing the waters of food.
-
-She now as readily seized her prey lengthwise as cross-wise; indeed,
-she even preferred, when hungry, to make straight for the head; by so
-doing, she wasted no time in turning it, but could swallow it at once.
-
-By nature she was very reserved, and had no desire for companionship;
-but her mental abilities were by no means small, and she was well able
-to make various observations, and profit by their lessons. Nor was she
-deficient in memory, as she distinctly showed every spring when going
-to spawn; she always found her way up the brook to the wide fen.
-
-She was very sensitive to every movement in the water, and in a way
-_heard_ with ease the boats, "the big birds." They always splashed so
-much with their oar-feet, or whisked their tail round in the water. She
-had often wondered at them! She had discovered that, like the grebe,
-they carried their young on their back; and, like all the other fish in
-the lake, she supposed them to be a part of the unrest up on the
-surface.
-
-Long before they came near her, she was distinctly aware of their
-approach.
-
-If she were high in the water, and the bird suddenly rushed down
-towards her, she darted to one side and hastened out of the way. It was
-different when the boat came slowly gliding along; then she only moved
-so as not to be run down.
-
-But it was many a day before she came to understand that it was they
-especially who wanted to harm her.
-
-One evening the old angler was rowing home late from his
-fishing-ground. The moon had risen, and shed her silvery light around
-his oars. They dipped down rhythmically, and came up with the silver
-dripping from them. Suddenly he noticed that one of them struck
-something, and the shock passed through the oar up into his arm. He was
-dragging something heavy, and could not bring the oar forward; and then
-he pulled the head of a pike up above the water. At the same moment the
-fish dropped, and the oar was free; but Grim was wiser after that.
-
-As the years passed she developed into a powerful ruler, and
-increasingly felt herself to be the divinely-favoured inmate of the
-lake. _She_ was not one of the rabble! She hunted large and small, and
-lorded it over the inhabitants of the lake as far as she possibly
-could.
-
-By more frequent and longer expeditions, she increased her knowledge of
-the lake, and learned the routes to all the reefs, creeks and banks;
-and she ascertained that in certain directions her world was immense.
-It was only the surface that she shunned, and the deepest depths; for
-there were great crayfish--to whom the Creator had been so good as to
-set their maxillary half at the end of a pair of long, jointed
-claws--and there, too, lived Oa, the dreaded fish-monster.
-
-Grim's territory lay half-way between these.
-
-In the pure light of early dawn, when the night flies and moths, drowsy
-and intoxicated with their nocturnal visits to the flowers, fell by
-hundreds into the water on their way home; when the swallows relieved
-the bats, and the whirligigs in the sheltered nooks began their
-noiseless scurrying over the water, beneath which the water-plants were
-beginning to appear in green, yellow and rust-red colours; when the day
-dawned down where Grim had her home, and the wide surface above her was
-filled with light and radiance--then she hunted most keenly, and felt
-most voracious, and then there was terror in her splash and snap.
-
-One morning early, a breeze is ruffling the surface of the lake, and
-winding, white-foamed currents are eating their way out among black
-shallows. The terns are diving down after small fish, and along the
-rush-bordered banks the rising sun is treading the water.
-
-Grim is abroad, pushing herself forward like a shadow along the bottom.
-Her cunning crocodile eyes are turned up so that they project from her
-head.
-
-A number of roach are thronging about a clump of rushes, examining
-leaves and stalks just as long-tailed tits search tree-tops and bark;
-they are inside it and outside it, sucking up the water-snails and
-insects.
-
-Grim stops with a jerk. She scarcely moves her ventral fins, and
-breathes very gently. At each breath she cautiously opens her mouth and
-draws back her tongue, thus filling the spiked barrel with water; then
-she carefully closes it again, shoots her tongue forward, and emits the
-water through her gills.
-
-The little fish gambol unwittingly close to her mouth. Her upturned
-eyes look still higher, and see the gleam of their white-scaled
-bellies.
-
-Now she is ready to spring.
-
-There is just a movement of the extreme tip of the tail. Only the
-shifting shadow-lines that the reeds cast over her body indicate that
-she is moving forward. She peers about continually, peevishly, and
-evilly. Only one thing troubles her; she can never decide which fish
-out of the swarming multitude she will take. True, she has made a
-special study of the way to direct her attack--as the ardent hunter his
-aim--where the throng is thickest; but the roach are nimble, and she
-seldom gets more than one at a stroke.
-
-Slowly and imperceptibly she rises, while all the fin-tips wag and wave
-in lingering enjoyment.
-
-Suddenly a little scarlet roach-eye discovers her black back, which up
-to the present had looked just like part of the bottom, and they fly
-away from her in a panic of terror. In one moment the rushy margin is
-empty.
-
-An accident that may happen even to the best of us! And Grim has to
-move on to fresh hunting-grounds.
-
-Among the floating forests of green feather-foil go big, broad-scaled
-bream. They follow close in one another's wake, and lie on the surface,
-letting the sunlight play upon their golden scales. Their fat bellies
-with the lobster-red fins, and their large, cod-like mouths, give an
-impression of simpleness. Yet they are cunning enough, and very
-cautious in all their behaviour.
-
-Several of them are covered with cuts and wounds on the back and sides,
-and it is evident they have already made acquaintance with a pike's
-mouth. The body of one of them is still bloody, and threads of flesh
-and torn scales make it look quite woolly as it moves through the
-water.
-
-They come from deep down at the bottom, and shine with mud and slime
-and water-moss. They whisk along with much movement and many strokes of
-the tail. Reeds and rushes swing and sway as they stop for a moment to
-rub themselves against them. As they pass through the open water,
-between the masses of vegetation, where the sun suddenly shines upon
-their amber scales, Grim hastily conceals herself in the forest of
-weed.
-
-The pliant water-plants, with their long stalks, accommodate themselves
-to the current, hanging westwards for an hour, only to turn just as
-unresistingly the opposite way the next. Stiff collars of leaves, like
-life-belts, hold up the naked stalks, and form a close, flickering
-thicket about the lurking lynx. Without the slime on her body, she
-would never get through.
-
-Soon the fat-bellies are before her; they are slouching along in little
-companies, with a thick, greenish, juicy rim to the corners of their
-fat mouths.
-
-Her purpose strengthens, her powers are doubled, but she is able to
-restrain herself: the moment has not yet come.
-
-Not until the last "water-cow" is straight in front of her does she
-reveal herself; and the water flashes and bubbles as Grim twists and
-turns in her efforts to come up with her prey.
-
-The flank attack, however, does not come altogether as a surprise to
-the "cow"; it has been prepared for it in this narrow passage, and
-therefore kept close to the bottom. As a stone bores its way into the
-ground, so does it plunge into the mud, stirring up the water, and
-digging itself in, so that Grim gets only mud and grains of sand
-between her teeth.
-
-Another accident which only sharpened her appetite and made her
-ungovernably fierce; and just then a little roach swam past.
-
-Grim started. Her embarrassment at her failure almost disappeared, and
-she involuntarily stiffened as she stood. She could see with half an
-eye that the little roach, which was limping along without any
-frolicsome jumps and twists, would be an easy prey.
-
-What luck! Roach were generally lively little fish, and not easily got
-hold of; and although they formed part of her daily fare, she had to
-use all her powers and unfold all her energy in order to catch two or
-three, at the most five, a day. It was only in May, when they lay in
-bundles among the rushes, amorously flicking their tails, that she had
-her fill of them, taking as many as a score in the day.
-
-Now only patience, a little more time to wait; for this time she would
-make sure of her fish!
-
-Just then there is a movement in one of the clumps of weed. The
-dusky-hued perch with the high back forestalls her. Right before her
-nose he darts like an arrow after the fugitive, but hesitates at the
-very moment of striking, stops, and sniffs.
-
-"Oh! so he daren't! He wants to have the whole company with him!"
-
-Grim's eyes are alight with the eagerness of the hunter, and her stiff
-tongue quivers in her mouth as, with widely opened jaws, she springs
-upon her prey.
-
-The roach is good enough! It wriggles between her teeth and tickles her
-cheeks and chin with slaps of its little tail; and yet ... it has an
-inexplicable strength like that of a little pearly fish that she dimly
-remembers.
-
-She grows angry. Is an insignificant little fish like this going to
-resist _her_ will? The silly little thing is ready to go any way but
-the one _she_ wants it to go; she can hardly get from one thicket of
-weeds to the other. She becomes so angry that she feels the blood
-burning in the back of her neck, and with a sudden vigorous effort, she
-gives the roach a violent tug.
-
-That helps; the fish becomes manageable, its strength vanishes. She is
-triumphant. Yes, she knew, of course, how it would be!
-
-Grim had been fortunate in her misadventure. True, it was a man-roach
-that she had bitten into, but she had fortunately broken the line, and
-now went off with a long trace dragging after her. She had swallowed
-the bait, but what made her horribly uncomfortable was that in doing so
-she had got a long, thorny water-plant fixed to her upper lip.
-
-They were the barbs of the triple hook that she took for thorns!
-
-At that moment she sees another little roach shining. It is just as
-languid as the previous one, and makes the same tempting impression.
-Instantly she makes a dash at it.
-
-The same comedy was gone through, the same incomprehensible strength in
-a puny roach, and the same work to get the refractory fish into her
-power.
-
-Well, she managed it at last; at last she had her mouthful.
-
-This one she swallowed too, but once more she had to spit out something
-sharp and prickly that hung to her upper lip on the opposite side.
-
-It was a long time before Grim managed to wear away the two triple
-hooks from the corners of her mouth, and in the meantime she swam about
-with the rusty things like an extra set of monster eye-teeth sticking
-out of her mouth. The pieces of line that trailed behind her often
-caught in things and chained her in an incomprehensible manner to reeds
-and rushes; but at last she pulled out one, and a little later the
-other, and a hard, gristly, leather-like skin formed where they had
-been.
-
-She gained some experience from this incident; henceforward, she
-regarded solitary, sickly-looking roach with keen suspicion. She would
-still take with confident voracity large roach and small; but she very
-reluctantly took a halting, languid fish like those that had pricked
-her so horribly that morning. Their drooping fins and heavy, wriggling
-flight had fixed themselves clearly in her mind's eye.
-
-Her peaceful youth, in which she had only had the heron and the
-crayfish and her own kind to fight with, had long since passed, and
-henceforth she was to see more and more of the angler's implements.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-But the old sportsman, whose tackle was wearing out, had to overhaul
-and renew his stock. It irritated him beyond endurance, and for a long
-time he felt ashamed of himself. From the resistance it had offered he
-felt quite convinced that the pike he had lost was at least worth a
-bronze medal. He would not tell anyone where it lay, but would take it
-himself when he had the opportunity.
-
-
-
-
-VII: THE RASPER
-
-
-The horde of marauders were chasing through the lake again, and behind
-them came the pike. These last did not go together, like the perch, in
-serried ranks at a furious hunting pace, but slunk along one by one
-from stone to stone, and from weedy clump to weedy clump.
-
-Grim is with them, and like a seal she helps herself to the flying
-bleak which in their terror rush blindly into her jaws. It is quick
-work, but nevertheless not quick enough. The gluttony of the perch
-angers and irritates her; she feels her belly growing larger, and her
-throat widening. She has room for more fish, mountains of fish!
-
-With a jerk of her body she comes nearer, and is now right in the
-whirlpool of bleak and perch.
-
-Quivering and trembling, the little fish fly in all directions as she
-tears among them, and with strong beats of her tail to right and left
-pursues her victims. Her eyes gleam, and her thin lips quiver with
-insatiable desire.
-
-A big, high-backed perch coolie makes a capture right in front of her.
-In his eagerness he makes such a commotion in the water that it looks
-as if it were full of thick, shining snakes. Snap! Snap! There goes a
-bleak right before her nose!
-
-This is more than she can endure! She dislikes this insolent lake-dog
-in a still greater degree than when, as a young pike, she stayed in the
-shelter of the creek. His cunning and deceit, his ability to save
-himself and to get her into a scrape, has of late frequently irritated
-her.
-
-A moment later, while she is in the middle of a spring, he happens to
-be pushed by his comrades right in front of her mouth. Her jaws are
-already opened, and the water is streaming in like a mill-race; she
-sees the bleak-fat upon the mouth of her plump opponent, and her
-ferocity and murderous lust are doubled.
-
-Then she gives way to the innermost need of her being. With an enormous
-development of energy, intoxicated with the joy of capture, she attacks
-the Rasper with the full strength of both her serrated jaws, opening
-them so wide, and dashing at him with such force, that they engulf him
-to far down his plump hog-back. The hundreds of little teeth with which
-her palate is paved have the same desire, the same purpose; to bore
-right in and hold fast.
-
-Just as the pike's attack is at its height, the Rasper suddenly raises
-his twelve-spined dorsal fin. During his chase of the little fish, it
-had lain neatly folded like a fan along his back; now it is transformed
-into a murderous weapon, and its bony ribs into a bundle of hidden
-sword-blades, now stiff and sharp like polished bayonets, now
-elastically pliable like rapiers.
-
-Joyfully Grim takes the big lump into her mouth. She feels that it
-pricks her, but the cavity of her mouth is not troubled with any
-exaggerated sensitiveness.
-
-Splendidly heavy and solid the Rasper feels as he lies upon her tongue!
-And yet--his rough, tile-like scales, and the very small amount of fat
-and slime on his skin, make it unusually difficult for her to get the
-lump down.
-
-He is hurting her now. She quickly takes a better hold, even letting
-her prehensile teeth come into play, and the long board-like tongue
-warp in co-operation; but no matter what she does, or how wide she
-opens her mouth, her efforts are in vain: the high-backed one refuses
-to move beyond a certain point.
-
-Incomprehensible! Impossible!
-
-She tries again. Besides her tongue and her prehensile teeth, she
-brings the muscles of her throat into play, and the bones of her head
-expand like a snake's. Colours dance before her eyes as the gullet
-opens and closes, trying to draw in the perch's head. But to no avail.
-The wedge remains immovable. The big mouthful is _too_ big!
-
-So there is nothing to be done, but give it up! Grim opens her mouth
-wide, relaxes her prehensile teeth, which, as readily as an adder's,
-turning on their hinges, return to the perpendicular; she opens her
-throat-muscles as far as she can, and even pushes with her tongue.
-"There! The torture in the spiked barrel is over. The prison is
-graciously open to the great perch."
-
-The Rasper, who, all through the battle, has been lashing out with his
-strong tail, which is hanging out of the pike's mouth, and throwing
-Grim from one side to the other, suddenly notices the loosening of the
-strait-jacket, and backs with a jerk. He thinks he is free, so easily
-does he swim now, although the darkness before his eyes is just as
-thick and oppressive.
-
-He is still in the pike's throat, and cannot get away, for he has his
-twelve stiffest dorsal spines bored into his enemy's palate; and the
-more he worries and works with his dangerous opponent, the deeper and
-more firmly do the spines fix themselves.
-
-In the meantime Grim, true to her pike-nature, has for a few moments
-lost nearly all her energy. The spines begin to hurt her, and her
-mouthful on the whole to incommode her. She cannot get sufficient water
-over her gills, and what does filter into her mouth in spite of the
-gag, is needed by the gag itself. She can feel it breathing inside her
-mouth; incessantly, with every indication of excitement, its
-gill-covers open and close, and take the lion's share of the water.
-
-It is impossible for her to bear this suffocation any longer; she must
-have air; and in ungovernable rage she begins to lash out with her
-tail. Now it is she who takes the upper hand, and pushes the hog-backed
-one before her through the water.
-
-Thus the combat continues. Now it is Grim who has the mastery, and
-shakes her opponent so that the perch's tail slaps her weakly on the
-cheeks, and fetches her blow after blow upon the back of her neck. Now
-it is the Rasper's turn to use Grim as a ferule, running her against
-stones and water-plants on the bottom, and whirling her round.
-
-But no matter how much they exert themselves, it is without result;
-they do not succeed in getting away from one another.
-
-Faint and dead-beat, they fall over on their sides. The blood in their
-red gills scarcely circulates, their strength is ebbing, and there is
-no longer any question of either being _leader_. They only take it in
-turns now to splash a little with their tails and try to right
-themselves.
-
-Grim, who is lying with her gills outside in the free water, is still
-alive and in possession of all her senses, but the Rasper is half dead.
-
-Then they float up and drift over the surface of the water like dead
-fish.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Thunder is rolling over the lake.
-
-A scorching sun and oppressive heat have long foreboded the storm that
-is brewing, and now at last it has burst; the clouds and the water have
-met.
-
-The celestial salute begins rumbling and crackling a long way off in
-the farthest corner where the reed-forests rally round the mouth of the
-brook. The lightning ploughs long, white-glowing fibrous sparks out of
-the sombre, purple horizon, from which the showers come chasing and
-sweeping over the lake, casting dark, threatening shadows before them.
-
-Under the fringe of forest on the lee-side, where all the grebes have
-crept together, one of the "big birds" is lying at anchor. She is
-riding out the storm while the whirlwinds are playing touch over the
-deep water. She has no lines or fishing-tackle out; she knows well that
-all angling is in vain.
-
-The water seethes and boils on all sides; the grey troughs of the waves
-are full of bursting bubbles. Little slate-coloured showers dart about,
-and plough up the surface of the water like the scratching of a cat on
-the skin; they dash themselves against the reedy margin and the edge of
-the wood, cutting broad lanes through them.
-
-All the fish have left the shallow water for the depths where they can
-lie far enough below the surface to escape the movement of the waves.
-Only the sheat-fish, the old water-hyena, is out roaming.
-
-The wild weather puts life into Oa; it brings her great opportunities.
-The fish cannot see in the rough water, they are thrown out of their
-course, at one moment jumbled together, then separated; and one and
-another come to grief. It is corpse-weather today. The angry waves stir
-up carrion from the bottom, or carry it out from bridge and bank. She
-always gets so hungry in stormy weather, and feels as if she must go to
-the surface for air.
-
-Feeling her way with her sensitive barbels, she glides out of her hole
-on the east side of the submarine mountain slope. Like a huge eel she
-wriggles up to the surface, where she lies in wait, slowly drifting
-with the current.
-
-Grim's white belly is not turned down now. The colour that makes the
-fish look one with the water would then have hidden her well enough for
-any one looking up from below. Now her flecked sides and black back
-make a distinct stripe in the water.
-
-A cunning expression comes into Oa's little eyes. The queer fish with
-two tails attracts her.
-
-The storm is abating; the last heavy shower is over. A patch of blue
-sky peeps out like a smiling eye between the frayed, swollen clouds.
-The lake sinks to rest, and even the pennons of the rushes hang loosely
-from their stalks; but in the distance can be heard the low rumbling of
-another storm.
-
-The boat takes advantage of the lull, and is on her way home.
-
-Oa, hearing the swish of her bow, has only time to make a few hasty
-snaps at the big perch's already swollen belly; her thick, fleshy lips
-are still pulling at the Rasper's intestines as she slowly dives down
-into deep water.
-
-The gulls and terns, which have begun to gather about the spot, are
-filled with renewed hope, and swoop down upon their prey with
-vociferous cries. Involuntarily the angler's attention is attracted to
-them.
-
-He takes out his glasses, then rows nearer; and in another moment he
-has the two fish in his landing-net.
-
-What a haul! A pike that has gorged itself on a giant perch! And it can
-only just have happened, for as soon as he has them in the boat he puts
-his nose to them and smells that they are fresh.
-
-The perch, it is true, looks rather poorly, but that is probably
-because the gulls have been at him already; and he carefully begins to
-release it, and is greatly pleased when he discovers that the big,
-voracious pike, which is quite lively, is one of his marked fish.
-
-Grim is furious, and tries to bite and snap while the happy angler
-makes a guess at her weight by swinging the landing-net up and down in
-his hands. Ten pounds at the very lowest! No throwing this one back
-again!
-
-So she was once more in man's power, between his fingers and nails. The
-light made her eyes prick and smart, the dry air stopped the course of
-her blood and her scales rose in terror and pain. For the third time
-she was as it were in the heron's throat!
-
-Then at last she awoke, her sight returned and the breath to her red
-gills; her brain became clear, and she no longer felt that
-uncomfortable pressure on the back of her neck. Life was once more
-coursing through her veins.
-
-She was in water, and with a stroke of her tail she made for the
-bottom. Oh! She had run her nose against a "stone!" She turned away and
-tried to go to one side, but there was another stone; there were stones
-all round her.
-
-The fisherman had put her into the well of his boat. She would be all
-right there--for the present!
-
-The well was full of small fish, which at her appearance immediately
-crowded together in a corner. She scowled at them, but although her
-stomach was empty, she felt no desire to eat. She remained perfectly
-still in the darkest corner of the well, and took note in her own way
-of what went on around her--the angler's tread on the planks of the
-boat, his rattling with the oars and gear, his shouts and hailing of
-other sportsmen gliding past, fastened themselves in her memory. Now
-and again a "bushy plant" came down and waved its stalks and leaves
-about her head. She wanted to get away from the bush, and started with
-a stroke of her tail, but she ran straight into the landing-net. She
-could not tear the bushy plant, its numerous thick tendrils were so
-absurdly strong; and it increased her suspicion and gave her fresh
-experience.
-
-Deep down, Oa follows the boat and listens to the ripple of the water
-against the keeled breast of the great "swimming bird." The old hyena,
-who had fed on the carrion of the lake for more than fifty years, knew
-all about the fishermen. With her little blinking, bronze-coloured
-eyes, that lay floating at the sides of her head, right out where the
-nostrils are generally placed in mammals, she gives careful attention
-to the refuse that the fisherman throws out when he cleans the dead
-perch.
-
-She dares not venture up to the surface. The sun is shining again, and
-there is no archipelago of water-lily leaves under which she can hide
-her head. She must wait patiently until her perquisites descend.
-
-She also hears the splashing of the bird, and shouts and strange thumps
-on the boat-planks; and she keeps her blue-black pupils fixed
-expectantly upon the great dark shadow up there.
-
-Who knows, some day perhaps a young one might drop out!
-
-As the angler neared the shore he lifted the lid of the well, and stood
-rejoicing over his catch. He saw the pike throw up her head, and was
-glad to find her still as lively as ever.
-
-And to think that Heaven should at last reward him for his magnanimity!
-For the mark on the dorsal fin showed distinctly that this fish had
-been in his hands before.
-
-Grim saw glimpses of the open water from which the dark land-shadows,
-in the form of the sides of the boat, shut her off. It must be a ditch
-she had got into, a pool; such mishaps had befallen her before on her
-annual wedding-tours up in narrow channels and bogs.
-
-Well then, she knew what to do, and she crouched in a corner, where she
-lay awaiting her opportunity.
-
-The angler should have replaced the lid before taking his usual nip. As
-it was, he was standing quietly leaning back with crooked arm, when
-suddenly, with a tremendous leap, Grim sprang out of the well and over
-the side of the boat, and with a splash disappeared into the lake.
-
-"Funny thing, very funny!" said a traveller a little later in the
-railway-carriage, to whom the angler had wrathfully related his story.
-
-But the angler himself saw nothing funny in it at all.
-
-
-
-
-VIII: THE ANGLER'S END
-
-
-It was so natural for Grim to be once more splashing freely in the
-lake; it was so natural for her to be feeding on roach again. She
-should have learned a lesson from her adventure in the air with the
-man, but the qualifications were lacking.
-
-Her senses, and her power of discrimination, however, had become
-keener, and she grew more timid and watchful in regard to splashing and
-noise; indeed, she quite lost her appetite when she was frightened.
-
-The time was past when she would confidently approach the shadow of a
-boat, she was exceedingly cautious now when she saw the "great bird" on
-the water.
-
-By this time she weighs about eighteen pounds, and measures the length
-of a grown man's leg from hip to heel; her dorsal fin measures more
-than two hand-breadths, and it would take a large hand to span her
-back.
-
-She loves peace and quiet, and feels very irritable under the influence
-of others.
-
-On the approach of storm and bad weather, which she perceives a long
-time in advance, she generally retires into deep water, where the noise
-of the waves cannot reach her. She feels indisposed and ill, and
-remains motionless in her watery lair. Day after day she stays thus,
-without feeling hunger, or any desire for action. She sleeps and lets
-all her nerves and muscles rest; only her gills and fins keep working
-mechanically.
-
-At such times the angler may try to tempt her with spoon or other
-artificial bait, or with live fish, but she will not touch them! One
-tempting little decoy-fish after another may whisk past her nose, but
-both palate and stomach easily withstand the temptations that are
-placed before her surfeited eyes.
-
-But when the weather calms down and the waves once more grow less, she
-comes to life again, and is then well and rested. The storm has cleared
-her blood; she needs food and exercise, and is biting madly.
-
-One afternoon the angler is sitting in his boat with all his rods and
-lines out; he is smoking a pipe and listening to the loud "karr-karr"
-of the grebes.
-
-As usual he is alone in the boat.
-
-He has anchored off his favourite bank, a narrow reef which, in the
-shelter of the wood, runs far out into the lake. This fishing-ground,
-which in windy weather is the richest in the lake, he has discovered
-himself.
-
-It was hard work getting out to it! The gusts of wind came down upon
-him unexpectedly as he bounded over the water in his little
-green-painted boat. Suddenly the lake assumed a wilder aspect, the
-great wave-mountains were broken up into small pieces, and the valleys
-were filled with wrinkles. The boat quivered, and the angler started
-and let the main-sail down, while the black wind from the frayed clouds
-raged under the heavens.
-
-Now the weather is clearing, however, and the lake is calming
-down--real fishing weather, thinks the angler, and he hums the old
-angler's song:
-
- "When the wind is in the east, 'Tis neither good for man nor beast;
-When the wind is in the south, It blows the bait in the fishes' mouth."
-
-The terns, with their long forked tails and black caps rise and fall in
-the air around him. They are good Samaritans to all the half-dead bait
-he from time to time throws overboard. The poor little ill-used things
-hastily make for the shadow of the boat or take up a position beside a
-floating weed. They want to hide because they feel weak; they do not
-want to go down into deep water to Oa. Then the terns snap them up, and
-put them down their little red throats.
-
-Three or four of them are pursuing, with shrieks and snarls, another
-which is flying away with a little bleak, like a piece of white stick
-in its jaws. It reminds the fisherman of a heron he once shot at, and
-which sent out a shower of such half-dead little fish.
-
-At that moment he has a bite at one of his lines. The line runs off the
-reel at a great pace, and the rod, which rests on the row-lock, but
-with its thick end wedged under a board at the bottom of the boat,
-bends like a flag-leaf and dips its point down into the water.
-
-He seizes the rod and lifts it. The line is running out at full speed.
-He carefully checks it, making the resistance stronger and stronger, so
-as to prevent the fish from breaking the line with a sudden jerk.
-
-Grim has taken the bait, and is now darting about with it. She had been
-hungry after three days' storm and wind, and had therefore rushed
-blindly at the lure. Alas, it is another of those prickly fish, she
-notices at once, one of those confounded tit-bits that are only to be
-looked at, but which neither teeth nor throat are ever glad to deal
-with; and she opens her mouth and chokes and spits.
-
-She gets rid of the fish she had snatched; she sees it, half dead and
-with long rents in its sides from her teeth, floating on its side with
-a reddish yellow eye turned up towards her through the water. But the
-prickly thorn that she took in at the same time is fixed in her jaw.
-
-She darts hither and thither, turning and twisting. Now she is down in
-deep water, rubbing her wounded mouth upon the bottom, now she darts,
-with the bubbles in her wake rising above her, round a clump of
-water-lilies.
-
-The angler sees an island of leaves as big as a dining-table disappear.
-
-Then she is off again. The reel shrieks and hums as if a giant
-grasshopper sat chirping in it. All at once, Grim leaps out of the
-water high into the air, so that her golden, black-streaked body, with
-the panther-like spots and the trickling water-drops, casts a gleam
-over the lake.
-
-Never had the good man seen such a fish! The very waves that it raises
-as it returns to the water, breaking the surface like a submarine, show
-him that it is--as he is accustomed to express it--"one of the good
-old-fashioned sort." He continues to gaze open-mouthed at the place
-where it disappeared, while a flurry of rings spreads out in all
-directions.
-
-A little later a whirlpool appears on the seething water, and he
-catches a glimpse of a dorsal fin with the hinder point missing. Then
-the old fisherman rejoices. A marked fish, one of his oldest, perhaps
-his biggest!
-
-He winds in, lets the line run out, and winds in again. His big body is
-perspiring with his exertions, and he has to stand with his legs wide
-apart and his feet firmly fixed whenever the mighty fish gives one of
-its sudden jerks.
-
-While this is going on there are bites on two of the perch-lines, and
-the angler can see they are not small fish either. The lines, which are
-lying loose over the gunwale, run out at a great pace, so that the
-winders hop and dance about at the bottom of the boat. One of them is
-jerked over the edge, so that fish, hooks, and line are lost; the other
-he tries to make sure of by setting his foot upon it.
-
-Like the back of a cat about to spring, the rod bends under its
-floundering burden. The old man has to keep on incessantly slacking and
-tightening the line; hoping to tire out the fish that was dragging his
-rod from one side to the other.
-
-He notes the smallest movement of his captive. It is still in full
-vigour, and there are many water-plants and stalks in the way. Will he
-be able to draw it from the deep water with his fine, fragile line?
-
-Suddenly Grim turns and darts in beneath the boat with such force that
-the rod must either break or follow her. The angler chooses to let it
-go in the hope of picking it up on the other side.
-
-It happens as he expected: the rod appears, floats up; he leans over
-and reaches it.
-
-The fight and nervous excitement recommence--the quick, exciting
-contest between man and fish.
-
-The wind plays its autumn hymn upon the rushes, and ruffles the water
-between the yellow-spotted water-lily leaves, while the sun's rays, as
-they come and go, light flaming torches among the trees and reeds. They
-gleam, they sparkle, they flash; and great, heavy, September clouds
-drift over the lake.
-
-At last the shrewd fisherman has the upper hand, and cautiously draws
-his captive close up to the boat. He bends down, with his knees upon
-the gunwale, and leans over with the landing-net, in his right hand.
-
-Grim suddenly finds herself close to the great "water-bird," and gives
-a violent jerk. The fisherman reaches out with his arm, and the upper
-part of his body as far as they will go; but he forgets that he is in a
-boat and on unsafe ground, loses his balance, and falls overboard with
-a splash, upsetting the boat as he does so.
-
-No one sees the accident, and his heavy waders drag him quickly down.
-
-Grim darts this way and that, winding the line round him and drawing
-him to the bottom. And then, among the rocks of the reef, the line
-breaks; the angler's body drifts in among the reeds.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Towards evening the sky becomes overcast and the troubled water looks
-thick and muddy. Little waves leap up, stand for a moment at their
-height as if trying to keep their balance, and then give up the attempt
-and roll down.
-
-A solitary little sunbeam still now and again brightens up all the
-grey-veiled colours, and then the water takes the hues of a
-fallow-deer, and the water-lily leaves become floating patches of
-rainbow.
-
-In the muddy valley between the bottom-springs, Oa is beginning to
-move. She blinks her cunning eyes, and their blue-black pupils become
-large and round. Then she sets out on a nocturnal expedition across the
-lake, steals into the rocky grottos of the cloister-cells, and finds a
-new hiding-place beneath the wreck of a boat--a new arrival. With her
-snout just in the rent between the bottom and the gunwale, she lies
-like a dog in its kennel, until night closes in and all is dark and
-silent.
-
-Then she lets herself slowly drift along the edge to the reedy borders
-of the lake, taking every drowned dog or cat as gifts from the
-Creator's hand.
-
-Everything that has no longer the power to keep above the water, all
-that is dead and drifts about, belongs to the crayfish and to her.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The Nipper had already found the body when Oa arrived.
-
-
-
-
-IX: THE WEDDING FESTIVAL
-
-
-Spring has come, and the pike are about to spawn. Grim, the great
-she-pike, has been lying motionless for days among the bottom
-vegetation, waiting the call of the sun. And now it has come. One
-morning it suddenly bursts through and lights up the forest of stalks
-in the yellow, weedy margin. In the little open spaces between the
-tufts there is life and movement, and a sound of splashing everywhere;
-dark scaly bodies rise slowly out of the water. Then the young fish
-gambol, their fins beating like wings in the sunshine.
-
-Grim's cold heart, too, feels the spring, and it warms her icy blood.
-She swims about, full of gentler feelings, she notes an attraction in
-the shallow water close inshore, the grass of the ditches, and the
-sheltered pools of the marsh. And suddenly she recollects her bridal
-chamber, far up at the end of a broad, sun-warmed ditch fringed with
-flowering willow and drooping birch, with flickering sunlight and
-shadow, and the splashing of lively wooers.
-
-Spring comes on apace, the sun's rays piercing ever deeper into the
-water, where the plants shoot and rise out of the ooze with herculean
-strength, mass themselves, expand, and throw wide arms abroad. From the
-stubbly reed-bed rise fresh stems; and all the fallen willow wands that
-are floating about put forth leaves and take root.
-
-Soon the banks grow green, and in the sour mud of the creek, where in a
-short time water-soldiers and duck-weed will form hanging islands,
-brown toads and green frogs are beginning to bark and croak.
-
-All kinds of fish are gambolling with joy and delight; and at last
-comes Oa, the old recluse. Without evil intentions she approaches the
-bank, and in the flaming dawn she lays her hundred thousand eggs among
-the thronging mare's-tails and grasses. But there is no bridegroom near
-her, for none exists. Bleak and little roach revel in her roe; and when
-she has spawned her heart once more grows cold, and she sinks back into
-the deep water, gloomy and sullen as before.
-
-Grim becomes more and more eager. Her deep-blue pupils, surrounded with
-a brass-coloured ring, shine like sapphires in an amber setting; the
-clayey tones along her sides and flanks change to green, and her
-gill-covers take on a deep orange hue.
-
-Little by little she feels herself attracted by the numerous eager
-little male pike that incessantly frisk about her, and are already
-resplendent in their magnificent golden bridal attire. She receives
-with delight the attentions of the one that for the moment pleases her
-most; towards the others, and especially those whom she does _not_
-like, she is capricious in the extreme, and will eat them if she has an
-opportunity.
-
-As her spawning-time draws near, she grows heavy and swollen with her
-roe, and at the same time more irritable and uncertain in temper. She
-eats nothing, and thinks only of swimming over a flat grassy bottom,
-where she can rub her distended belly over the soft grass, arching her
-back like a dog in the consciousness of well-being.
-
-The lake, whose banks are for the most part steep and reedy, never
-tempts her when she is about to spawn. She prefers to make her way up
-the brook to a number of large flooded peat-bogs and meadows.
-
-She generally reaches them by a round-about way. At one place where the
-brook makes a bend and forms swampy ground with miles of reed-forest
-along its banks, a broad belt of rushes runs through some low-lying
-meadow-land for some distance. The belt twists and turns, and all the
-year through, withered rushes lift thin, seedless tassels above the
-rest. In summer it is grown over, and is little more than a deep
-bottomless ditch; but in spring, a sudden thaw will swell it to a wide,
-full channel.
-
-Here, under flowering blackthorn and budding alder-trees, the waters of
-the bog and the lake are mingled.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-One cloudy, misty night, Grim, followed by three ardent male pike, the
-largest not half her size, makes her way through the ditch. Other
-suitors have already appeared; the great migration before spawning is
-in full swing.
-
-In and out she moves, among the shallows and banks of water-plants.
-Sometimes there is only a channel in mid-stream to follow, sometimes
-she has to go through a long, narrow passage beneath an over-hanging
-bank, until she reaches open, submarine plains in broad creeks. Her
-ardour and determination to overcome all difficulties help her,
-notwithstanding mud and a rotting dam.
-
-At last she is through, and swimming about at her ease.
-
-The marsh water shines golden black, with a tinge of bronze. Grim is
-never weary of rubbing against the soft, muddy peat.
-
-Half-decayed remains of dead stalks form a network all over the great
-cushion at the bottom, and fresh remains of cell-tissue and organic
-things just dead are always on their way down. But from the depth new
-life rises once more; the sun is ever setting free tiny, green, mossy
-balls of slime that lie moored, as it were, to a single fine umbilical
-cord, and twirl and sway down on the bottom. All at once the cord
-breaks, and they rise through the water in a cluster like bubbles, and
-expand into large, fringed umbels.
-
-The willow-wands on the knolls are in flower, and behind the points of
-land the coots are quarrelling, while the snipe fly round and round in
-the air, and let the wind play upon their feather-harps.
-
-Then comes the day when she is ready to spawn. A peculiar, and to her
-inexplicable, desire to bury herself in the rushes and reed-stubble
-fills her, and she likes to run her big body far up among the grass and
-sedges, where she can scarcely swim or turn. With joy she feels the
-thrill right up her flanks.
-
-She has never been very sensitive, least of all when it did not concern
-herself; and now she looks unmoved upon the excited males as they snap
-and butt at one another. Unfortunately she has no appetite, or she
-would have eaten the most tempting of them.
-
-The spawning soon begins, and the fish leap one about another in a
-cluster; Grim loses all consciousness of her surroundings, while she
-sheds her golden stream of five hundred thousand clear, yellow eggs.
-
-No sooner, however, is this accomplished than she comes to her senses,
-and suddenly feels an overpowering hunger after her tender abandonment.
-Her gently waving tail-fin turns stiff as a wind-filled sail, and with
-a quick, powerful turn she slips her spiked jaws over the nearest beau,
-and slowly transfers him to the vacant place within.
-
-Over an hour the wedding-breakfast lasts, and then the great lady swims
-off complacently with a flap of her late lamented bridegroom's tail
-still sticking out of her mouth.
-
-Later on, on her way back through the road of rushes down to the lake,
-her blood is cold and her will dormant.
-
-The spring was unusually dry; the water from the thaw had sunk in at
-once, and the brook received little additional water; and when Grim
-reached the old, half-rotten dam, she found it had been replaced by a
-new one.
-
-Here she remained together with a number of other fish that gradually
-collected at the dam, and tried to get through. For two days she was
-unable to get either forwards or backwards; several times she attempted
-a leap, but, without success. Then she changed her mind, and went back
-to the marsh while there was still time.
-
-She was shut in!
-
-
-
-
-X: IN THE MARSH
-
-
-A wide stretch of marshland, thickly covered with vegetation, and
-difficult of access, with numerous large pools, full of tussocks and
-rushes. Century-old peat-pits ran side by side, connected with little
-watercourses or half-overgrown ditches.
-
-Willow and cotton-grass covered the hillocks, and naze and headland ran
-out into the black water, in which were islands, sometimes fixed,
-sometimes floating.
-
-Whole little floating fields of frog-bit and pond-weed would shoot out
-from a bank, and completely cover the bronze-coloured water; green and
-smiling they looked, and tempted the foot as a trustworthy bridge; but
-at a single touch with the tip of one's boot, the whole mass quivered
-and trembled.
-
-Down in the deep water where the black horse-leeches pushed their way
-along, and monster larvae with bent back and open jaws stood motionless,
-watching for prey among the refuse, grew the oddest water-forests. They
-were neither hard nor stiff; their stems consisted of slender stalks
-held up by the water.
-
-There were bluish green, luxuriant "fir-forests," and whole groves of
-palm-like bushes with red flowers upon long stalks. At the edges there
-were climbing plants, which formed a matted web of stalks and fibres,
-and bulged out in swelling clouds.
-
-What a curling and bending in everything down there! What pliant
-shapes! And everywhere there were little, fat, pug-like bastard carp,
-dozing and opening their mouths without ceasing, making double chins in
-their enjoyment, and rolling their eyes ecstatically.
-
-From the deep, clear lake with its shining waters, Grim had now come to
-these low, swampy banks. At first the change was somewhat sudden; but
-she possessed the ability of her kind to adapt herself rapidly to her
-circumstances.
-
-Nor did she at first have much difficulty in obtaining food. There were
-young bream and eels, as well as the "pugs" to go on with; but by
-degrees, as she grew bigger and the years went on, she had to make
-herself more and more omnivorous in order to exist. She was living, in
-a way, like a whale in a lake.
-
-In the winter especially things were difficult. In the lake, which had
-been her home for more than thirty years, it had been easy to manage.
-It was too big to be frozen over; even in the severest cold the bottom
-springs kept large areas open. But this was not the case with the
-marsh, for here the "air," during a long frost, became very close. The
-water took up the marsh-gas from the decaying remains of animals and
-plants on the bottom, and could not give it off and renew itself with
-oxygen.
-
-Grim had then to go where flags and knotgrass pricked tiny, almost
-invisible holes in the ice. She found them by the gleams of light, and
-noticed that she could breathe freely at such places.
-
-With this exception she generally kept at the bottom during the cold
-season, burying herself in the warm, fallen vegetation. There she lay
-and slept, her blood circulated more slowly, and for days together she
-required no nourishment.
-
-But the torpid state was not complete; now and then she had to move,
-and then she satisfied her hunger with mussels and snails, and would
-also examine the mud-shafts of the peat-pits.
-
-Here in the muddy labyrinths she came upon tench, olive-green fish,
-with black back. Their scales were very small, and their whole body
-covered with a thick layer of slime. They were coarse fish, with thick,
-leathery fins. Formerly she could never endure them, and had made use
-of them chiefly as a kind of healing remedy when she lived in the lake.
-When her mouth was full of pricks and scratches from fish-hooks, she
-would go into the mud to consult them and to get a healing plaster
-stuck upon her wounded snout by rubbing it against their slimy sides;
-but now, when hunger sharpened her appetite, she had to turn her former
-benefactors to another use, and get as much as possible out of the
-consultation. She therefore ate them with pleasure.
-
-In the summer she seldom touched them, but fattened herself on
-everything that came in her way. She would take a snake that swam
-across, a frog, a mouse; and if a water-rat made its appearance, she
-shot up under it, and sucked it in at one mouthful.
-
-In this way she got on fairly well for a few years.
-
-One year, however, there was an unusually dry summer, and in order to
-find sufficient water she had to move from peat-hole to peat-hole, and
-often had to live for weeks at a time in the pools left in the deeper
-hollows. Fortunately for her, as the water sank, all the inhabitants of
-the bog gradually came together in these basins. She came across perch
-and carp; and eels, leeches and toads were also, like herself,
-imprisoned here, until the rain should once more bring an abundance of
-water.
-
-She continued to develop, but otherwise than before; ferocity and
-cruelty were replaced by cunning and ingenuity. And like all the other
-pike in the bog, she soon learned to swing herself over the ridges from
-one hole to another, and even to cross land for short distances.
-
-She had the choice between dying of hunger and finding an expedient.
-
-It seemed as if that passage, long ago, from the flying heron's beak to
-the smooth surface of the water had hardened her gills and enabled them
-to bear the strong, drying oxygen of the air for a longer time; for she
-often ventured over ridges and peat-dams wider than a high-road.
-
-When she could bear her hunger no longer, she ran herself aground and
-up into the grass, and then, bending herself together, leaped on in the
-direction of the new water. As soon as she was in the dry air, she
-could feel which way she ought to take; the neighbourhood of water
-affected her sensitive skin and drew her the shortest way. Everything
-flickered in a golden mist before her eyes, as she crept on, bending
-and leaping.
-
-It was in the early hours of morning, when the grass was wet with dew,
-that she made these expeditions overland.
-
-On one of these occasions she got into a large, deep pit, where the
-crayfish population that annually migrated from the lake had their
-stronghold. All over the perpendicular, blackened sides of the
-peat-cutting living crayfish claws opened at her.
-
-Day after day for six months she went hunting here, and had enough to
-do with making her way into the hard, perpendicular walls in which the
-nippers had their holes. She knew from her experience in the lake that
-the crayfish could neither steer nor change their course when, with
-flapping tail, they darted backwards through the water, and were
-therefore easily caught when once she had hunted them out.
-
-Only one ancient, mussel-scarred fellow, coal-black all over, and with
-one large and one very tiny claw, eluded her most ardent endeavours. It
-sat in a rocky hole, far in, its spear-armed head with the stalked eyes
-resting pensively upon its two unequal claws.
-
-Once or twice it happened that she was aroused from her torpor at night
-by feeling a firm, hard grasp upon her body, and she darted round in a
-circle like a dog after its tail; but the Nipper always knew when to
-let go.
-
-One day she was also obliged to leave _this_ hole. She managed to break
-down the ridge between her and a neighbouring pit, where she enjoyed a
-few months' ease and comfort. Here she passed the winter, and cleared
-the mud of every tench, every leech, and every snail.
-
-When spring came she ate everything that came in her way. At this
-season frogs and toads made their way in multitudes to the pools. The
-frogs lay croaking and croaking, and the toads barked and growled, all
-of them full of love and delight, and therefore an easy prey.
-
-Later on she revelled in frogs' eggs, and swallowed great quantities of
-the fat, black yolks. Sometimes, too, she could feast on some long
-threads that were stretched about the reed-stubble; they were the eggs
-of the big toads, threaded like beads upon a string, and laid in the
-water to hatch.
-
-On the whole she was glad of the frogs and toads; they kept on
-reappearing, afterwards too, when the little tadpoles began to swarm.
-
-She could no longer afford to be fastidious; she had to take
-everything, and not let a crumb be wasted.
-
-During the summer nights she was busy at the surface. The big, heavy
-moths, which often, in thoughtlessness or carelessness, settled on the
-water or on some floating straw, became her booty. She ate them, wings,
-straw and all, like a hungry man trying to satisfy his appetite with
-prawns.
-
-No wonder that the teeth in her huge mouth gradually developed into
-something like the whalebone in the mouth of a whale
-
-But a stomach with the cubic capacity of a _hectolitre_ needed more
-than this!
-
-The bog is veiled in a steaming mist, which hangs like cloud-lakes over
-the reeds. The moisture penetrates everywhere, and trembling drops hang
-from everything; and the thousands upon thousands of spiders' webs show
-up in all their marvellous workmanship.
-
-Thickets of willow and drooping birches cast black shadows all along
-the ridges and banks, and large, thick swarms of gnats hang silently in
-the air. Only a leaping fish or a bathing swallow disturbs the deep
-morning stillness.
-
-The great bog-snail, with its horse-like head and bat-like ears, has
-come out of its shell and is feeling everything that comes within its
-reach, groping its way along, and then with a jerk dragging its spiral
-shell after it. Now it fastens itself to a little dead fish and sucks
-out its eyes, and finally comes to rest upon the broad leaf of an iris,
-the point of its shell still trembling with the movement of the water.
-
-A boat-bug that has grown tired, and drawn in its oars, also composes
-itself to rest. Slowly it sinks to the bottom of the water, where it
-settles down comfortably and with discrimination among caddis-worms,
-planorbis, and young salamanders. Even a water-beetle that is in a
-hurry and, with its head in the mud, is fussing about everywhere, is
-roughly tossed aside by the powerful palpi.
-
-Up on the clear surface swims the grebe. Its back is dark, the head,
-with the beautiful ruffle round its neck, poised high; but breast and
-belly are a glistening slivery white. It never goes on shore, never
-even ventures into shallow water; for it must be where it can dive
-without hindrance. On its back it carries its tiny young, holding its
-wings protectingly round them as they lie buried in its back-feathers
-as in a cushioned hollow.
-
-The male swims beside them and dives after food, which he puts into the
-gaping mouths of the young as they chirp and flap their little stumpy
-wings.
-
-Grim knows the divers well, and they know her--or so, at least, they
-think.
-
-This morning, however, in her insatiable hunger, she sets her teeth
-into a webbed foot and upsets the little boat, so that all the young
-ones fall out. With the greatest possible speed she gulps down the
-whole flock, and then, more or less appeased, goes to the bottom,
-having learnt feathers do not disagree with her at all.
-
-Until next morning she found herself just as hungry again.
-
-Then she was fortunate enough to gain fresh experience about feathers.
-
-In the early dawn, while the rays from the rising sun shed their
-peculiar colours over the bog, and made it shine with green and yellow,
-with purple and indigo, she made a dash at a fish on the surface,
-without suspecting that up in the air above her there was a winged
-rival, who also desired the booty.
-
-The tern swooped headlong downwards as Grim leaped headlong upwards,
-and the mouths of the two spoilers closed at the same moment over the
-little fish. Grim, however, opened her mouth the wider, and closed it
-with the greater force, and she bit with a voracious violence as great
-as if she were about to eat the carcass of an ox.
-
-She got the fish and the tern's head in the same mouthful, noticed that
-she was well laden, and backed downwards, drawing the bird with her
-into deep water, where she swallowed her strange prey.
-
-What an immense blessing fish with feathers were! For several days she
-felt so thoroughly satisfied!
-
-From that time she considered every creature upon the surface of the
-water as her lawful booty. No sooner did a wild duck drop on to the
-water in its evening flight, than Grim darted up after it from her hole
-in the mud. At intervals of a day she took both the grebes and cleared
-the creeks of coots and a couple of young storks that had come for the
-purpose of learning to fish.
-
-But still the craving for food allowed her no rest. She had to be
-constantly extending her domain and finding new territory.
-
-See the marsh now that July has come!--July, luxuriant, mature, with
-clouds for hips and swelling breasts, and a sun that seems weary of
-journeying. Like sea-birds that have no air under their wings for their
-flight, come puffs of wind, throwing themselves into peat-bogs and
-marsh-pools. The air is one continuous drowsy hum of flies and gnats;
-and the reed-warbler is in full voice.
-
-Grim lies dozing in the tepid water, and sees the world above her
-indistinctly and uncertainly as through thick grass. She only notices
-that out of the shining blue up there, there now and then appears a
-little dark shadow. It comes down suddenly, pauses for an instant as it
-touches the water, and is gone again.
-
-It is something alive, she guesses--something for _her_!
-
-Wherefore she disguises her torpedo-body, and awaits her opportunity.
-
-A moment later the vegetation trembles, the thick masses of sphagnum
-moss bulge out like clouds, a storm rises on the bottom. The heap of
-moss lifts, the surface of the water rocks and is suddenly broken by a
-splash as Grim darts up at the very moment that a swallow, with a
-graceful swing, skims a gnat off the water.
-
-The surface grows calm, the bubbles float off and burst before reaching
-the bank, while Grim sinks back into her bed with the bird on its way
-through her gullet.
-
-The water-beetles and gnats were jumbled together in one muddy mass.
-
-Thus the struggle for food was daily sharpening her wits.
-
-Formerly she had resorted to the islands of water-lilies to catch fish;
-now there _were_ no fish, but experience had taught her that here the
-birds came to drink. With her nose just under the margin of the leaf,
-she stood ready; and she captured many a water-wagtail, now the white
-with the moon-silvered feathers, now the yellow--yellow as newly-opened
-marsh-marigolds.
-
-It sometimes happened, too, that she got a wood-pigeon, or a peewit, or
-a snipe; and once she took an old, full-grown heron. She seized it by
-the leg and backed with it, drawing it out into deep water, where it
-drowned.
-
-But the heron tried repeatedly to spit her upon his beak, and in this
-way she lost one of her eyes.
-
-
-
-
-XI: TERROR
-
-
-In the largest of the old peat-holes with their dark brown water, a
-single large fish could be seen, in bright sunshine, lying motionless
-among the rushes under the bank.
-
-From time immemorial it had lived in this bog-pool, and seldom left its
-waters. A wild duck, carrying pike's roe among its feathers, had
-planted it there long ago.
-
-_Terror_ was not quite so big as Grim, but was longer and leaner, with
-the head and teeth of a shark.
-
-Many a time had she and Grim fallen out with one another, and fought
-viciously in their struggle for food. The scars left by their bites lay
-in deep furrows down their flanks, and were covered with colourless
-scales arranged in spirals and circles.
-
-Of late, however, they had wisely avoided one another, keeping each to
-her own large pool.
-
-During her first year in the bog, Grim had been followed by several
-powerful male fish, and a number of younger males swam round about. The
-second year there were only a few of them left, and in the spring, when
-the heavens again began to give light and warmth, both she and Terror
-had been obliged to finish their spawning alone.
-
-Many a happy bridegroom had slipped down their throats; and now,
-between them, they had cleared the whole bog.
-
-Languid and emaciated, they had now gone into deep water to rest, until
-the desire for good and abundant nourishment suddenly became intense,
-and inflamed their courage and foolhardiness.
-
-One morning, before daylight had penetrated into the water, Grim
-catches a glimpse through it of the swarthy belly of the old fish.
-Driven by hunger, she has come a little way out of her hole, and is now
-lurking at the edge of the vegetation just above.
-
-Large pieces of ice and slushy snow are drifting about in the pool, but
-along the banks and the edges of the tussocks, whither the spring has
-brought flocks of frolicsome peewits, the heat of the midday sun has
-already made open water and currents.
-
-Suddenly Grim is unpleasantly reminded of her rival's presence by
-seeing her orange-coloured flanks gleam as she makes a charge, and like
-a dart she shoots up. As they now meet, after their happily-accomplished
-delivery, they are both fully aware of the purpose of the meeting:
-they mean to devour one another.
-
-Fin by fin they set off, scowling maliciously at one another. Grim is
-close to the body of her rival, and as they move on she pushes her in
-over the edge of the reeds.
-
-During the winter the reeds have been cut, but the crooked-edge,
-sharp-pointed stumps are left standing just below the surface, like a
-stiff brush. The marsh-pike keeps getting her body over the brush,
-which with every movement tears her tail and belly, and all at once
-rouses her dull, sluggish nature out of its indifference. She blows up
-her gills and angrily extends her fins, while a thick shower of
-sparkling gold and silver scales whirls through the water to the
-bottom.
-
-She slips away from the reed-bed, and swift as lightning turns upon
-Grim, but the old pirate is not to be caught by a bog-trotter. She
-sacrifices half her dorsal fin, which is mercilessly torn into
-streamers down the spines.
-
-Then Grim takes a turn under Terror, dashes up from below with open
-mouth at her opponent, and fastens her teeth in her adversary's belly.
-Terror tries in vain to make use of her teeth. Again and again she
-makes the attempt, her saw-toothed jaws opening and closing with a
-snap. But Grim goes on shaking her, while shower after shower of scales
-flutter around them in the water.
-
-They roll over one another, the ice-floes break, and thousands of small
-crystals clink and tinkle. Now they are up in the slushy snow, where
-the dirty, yellow water seethes and bubbles round their lashing tails;
-now they disappear in a flickering zigzag down to the bottom.
-
-With the tenacity and energy with which Grim is always animated when
-after prey, she now wrestles with Terror. She pinches the unfortunate
-fish, tortures and worries her, and keeps it up without interruption.
-It is not the sort of battle to weary her. She holds her prey between
-her jaws all the time; it strengthens her purpose, lights the fire in
-her eye, and encourages her to unceasing perseverance.
-
-The greater the opponent, the greater is her reward and satisfaction.
-Her stomach desires what tongue and teeth already feel so near; she
-_must_ succeed in getting this huge morsel--as she once did with her
-little brother--to lie unresistingly in her mouth, so that she can have
-the pleasure of turning it about and begin to swallow it.
-
-Terror twists and turns in her efforts to get a bite; but Grim has been
-fortunate in taking hold so far forward that there is no room left for
-her to bite. Terror has only her tail-end to strike with, and with it
-she sweeps up clouds of mud sufficient to hide an elephant.
-
-The battle lasts for more than three hours, and all the ice in the pool
-is broken into fragments. By this time Grim's miry opponent is
-exhausted: success has crowned the efforts of the old fratricide, as it
-has always done in this kind of contest, ever since she was the length
-of a darning-needle. Then in a trice she turns the harassed victim
-over, and suffocates her by wedging her head into her own throat. But
-it takes her four days to get Terror through the mouth of her draw-bag.
-At last she had a fish again that went some way!
-
-
-
-
-XII: GRIM DEVELOPS
-
-
-Grim was now about five feet long, and weighed something like fifty
-pounds. As with all pike that live in small lakes, her head had grown
-inordinately. Her daily fight for food necessitated constant use of her
-head-muscles, which had developed accordingly. In her mouth alone a
-wooden shoe could easily have been hidden.
-
-The old bright colours along her back and belly were now quite altered.
-The body vied in blackness with the evil-smelling mud of the bog, and
-broad, golden-bronze streaks shaded the dull sides. Out in the sunshine
-she had quite a rusty, coppery appearance.
-
-She was a mythical pike, one of those old-time fish about which the
-late lamented angler had told wonderful tales in his day. Even the
-regular mane of scales of a finger's length, from the back of the neck
-down over the pectoral fins, was not wanting.
-
-But her eye was evil, a mixture of yellow and green, cold and deceitful
-as the foam of the bog-waves; it always shone with a fierce hunger, and
-even on the rare occasions when the hunger was appeased, the expression
-of that eye was one of insatiable voracity.
-
-She has succeeded in clearing the bog-holes nearest to her own quarters
-of every frog, water-rat, and wild duckling; and she has eaten up all
-the swallows that have come to drink as they flew. Again she has had to
-travel a good way overland, until at last she has come to rest in a
-wild, wide pool, which she has never before visited.
-
-Here she has had a fresh, welcome success. She has overcome and
-swallowed another big, muddy specimen of a bog-pike, even heavier than
-Terror; the fellow had just bolted a smaller one of his own species,
-and in it lay a full-grown mallard.
-
-Food! Food!
-
-It is true she always felt her stomach rather heavy, for in the course
-of time she had got it paved with the most remarkable things. Besides
-various hooks and wire traces, there was a large key that once, in her
-youth, when she had been standing beneath one of the great water-birds,
-had come darting like a roach through the water. There was also a
-dessert-spoon acquired under similar circumstances, a plummet, and,
-lastly, a watch-chain, from the ill-fated angler's vest. All these had,
-however, become encysted, and were not for consumption; at the very
-most they were an aid to digestion!
-
-She has been a week over her last splendid catch.
-
-She makes another and another; but after a couple of months she has
-emptied this bog-pool too. What now, and whither?
-
-One evening she works her way in among flowering iris, club-rushes, and
-marsh-grass, and peers enviously up at the big dragon-flies that are
-chasing fat flies not an inch above her head. She grows hungrier than
-ever, and sets to work to devour black horse-leeches in place of eels,
-and the roots of certain water-plants, which she tries to persuade
-herself are worms.
-
-In the warm, still, summer evening, the shadows shoot from the banks
-and ridges, framing the blood-red sunset hues in ebony. Had there been
-but a few roach left, they would have been playing ducks and drakes
-over the smooth water.
-
-A reed just beside her moves, and from her hiding-place at the edge of
-the rushes she sees the reed-warbler flitting about up above. The
-crafty expression comes into her flat eye; she calculates her distance,
-and makes a spring.
-
-The first time the bird is too quick for her, but the next time her
-effort is crowned with success; and the third time she closes her jaws
-on the reed-warbler's foster-child, a large, red-eyed young cuckoo!
-
-Grim was an artist in her way, and had her own peculiar tricks. Since
-the day when she had leapt out of the angler's boat, she had developed
-into a regular flying-fish.
-
-Food! Food! The constant refrain both above water and below. To have
-something in the maw--to have _much_--as much as possible. Food! Food!
-
-The pool is very deep, with perpendicular, overgrown sides, save in one
-place where the peat had once been dragged up a slope, making a gradual
-transition from water to land. The stiff clay is covered with the
-foot-prints of cattle, and the herbage on the mounds round about is
-cropped.
-
-This is a watering-place.
-
-Often, when in a famished condition, a transport of hunger which makes
-her lash her tail-fin round madly in a ceaseless search for food, she
-has stopped suddenly at the sight of a pair of big, thick legs stirring
-up the mud. It is a grazing bull or heifer that has come to the
-watering-place, and has splashed out far enough to be able to feel cool
-water under its nose.
-
-One day when this occurred, the big-jointed legs and broad chest of the
-bull inspired Grim with hope, and her over-excited imagination began to
-conjure up the possibility of at last getting hold of something worth
-catching.
-
-She steals forward, and her obliquely-set eye, which can look upwards
-with such ease, fastens, as though cast in that position, upon the
-great horned head of an ox.
-
-She pushes on among the black cat's-tails, hidden under the long-ribbed
-fans of weed, until she is just in front of the drinking animal, and
-can see through the glimmering surface of the water the sucking, fleshy
-nose.
-
-At this she can no longer control her voracity. Where her stomach
-wills, her body must follow after. Her shrewdness may warn her, and
-experience urge her to caution, but in vain: when her stomach wills,
-she rushes into the fray.
-
-The ox throws up its head with such violence that Grim is dragged up
-with it halfway; but she does not relax her hold, and when she sinks
-back into deep water, she takes a large piece of the ox's snout with
-her.
-
-The marsh, with its miles of reed-beds, was a favourite haunt of game,
-for coolness in the midsummer heat, and for warmth in the winter cold.
-Here were peaceful spots to hide when chased by men with the report of
-guns and the barking of dogs. And Grim knew how to benefit by this
-abundance of game.
-
-Just as it had long been her way to snatch her prey by springing out of
-her element, so she now created a new means of support by lying in wait
-at the drinking-places like a crocodile.
-
-Several times she molested horses when watering, and on one occasion
-she bit off half the tongue of a poor calf.
-
-One afternoon a roe-deer comes down with its young. The day is hot, and
-they run far in, one of them, unable to stop, going in up to its chest.
-Grim darts up, seizes it by the body, overturns it, and then drags it
-out with her.
-
-Another day a small dog suffers the same fate. It is caught by the
-fore-leg and drawn down, while a storm of rings spreads out on all
-sides.
-
-All she had dreamed of in earliest youth has been realized; no prey is
-now too large for her.
-
-When she moves slowly in the deep water, long waves rise above her, and
-whirlpools gyrate upon the coffee-coloured water; and if she shoots up
-on to the grass after a frog or a water-rat, and churns the water into
-foam, the whole pool is filled with breakers.
-
-Grim is a remnant of primeval ages, a creature from the time of the
-great swamps.
-
-Late in the autumn, when the dock was turning red, and the stiff spikes
-of the mare's-tails were bent like withered grass, black autumn showers
-filled the marsh to overflowing. The wet mud lay far up over the
-meadows and pastures, and poured like rivers through the ditches. Pool
-ran into pool, and the peat-cuttings, which lay side by side, only
-separated by high, narrow ridges, became one huge pit. It was a regular
-deluge.
-
-Grim swam far and wide, and almost fancied herself in the lake once
-more. She found her way into new oases where food was abundant, and
-made great inroads upon the numerous eels and tench that were flocking
-up from the brook through the ditches and channels. That autumn she
-really gained ground, and had something with which to withstand the
-winter.
-
-But one day in October it happened that an osprey that had got out of
-its course strayed in over the marsh. The morning mist had just
-disappeared, but the sun was not quite up, when the grey-brown bird was
-seen sailing high up in wide circles, its mottled breast gleaming in
-the sunlight; and with a black, hooked beak beneath a pair of sharp,
-sagacious eyes.
-
-The bird had come far and had not yet breakfasted; it came down nearer
-and nearer to the ground. All the little birds in the reeds began to
-cry out, and the coots sought shelter in the larger clumps of reeds.
-Like a kestrel, the bird kept at tree-height above the water, sailing
-backwards and forwards, keeping a sharp watch below.
-
-There was frost in the air, and the great, hungry fisher probably had a
-presentiment of the bolt that would soon close its larder. In any case
-it was quite determined to take both little and big, and leave nothing.
-
-It sailed on perseveringly from pool to pool, over the rushes in the
-muddy water and the bog-myrtle along the banks, moving slowly, with
-hanging claws.
-
-Grim comes up from deep water on her morning round, making the most of
-her time while the shadows still conceal her and veil her movements.
-Now and again she stops and lies in wait among the water-plants, with
-her torn, dorsal fin, still but half healed, standing a little above
-the water.
-
-On one of these occasions the osprey discovers her, and without
-recognizing what sort of a fish it is, hovers above the spot.
-
-More than once it descends in vain, but is at last successful.
-Unobserved by Grim, the bird darts upon her from behind with
-outstretched claws, and drives them with full force into her back. It
-feels its claws sink in, and the pleasant struggling of something
-alive.
-
-[Illustration: "The bird darts upon her from behind with outstretched
-claws, and drives them with full force into her back."]
-
-Its body is partly in the water, but the wings are quite clear, and it
-flaps vigorously, knowing it must lift its treasure with a quick
-movement.
-
-A shudder passes through Grim. At the first moment she fancies herself
-attacked by some scaly enemy, and shakes herself and whirls round,
-snapping fiercely. But there is nothing to get hold of; the surface of
-the water seems, as it were, to hold her fast.
-
-The osprey screams and beats his wings, sending up fountains of spray
-all round. Like others of his species, he is accustomed to master even
-the largest booty, and he still entertains the highest hopes and will
-not let go.
-
-Then all at once danger is imminent! The rash captor notices that the
-sustaining volume of air beneath his wings is growing less. Now his
-wings are beating the water. He tries to get rid of his prey, but
-cannot get his claws out quickly enough; and the next moment he is
-drawn down and, to his terror, feels--what he has never quite
-believed--that water is not after all his true element.
-
-Life is quickly departing from the hitherto victorious bird; the bold
-flyer, who has darted down hundreds of times and let the water close
-over his light, oiled feathers, to rise a moment later in a shower of
-spray and ascend proudly to dizzy heights, now sways, suffocated,
-ruffled and limp, upon feet whose claws seem rooted in fish-flesh.
-
-Grim lived all that winter with the eagle on her back, and felt
-strangely hampered in her movements. The bird gradually decomposed, and
-at last was only a skeleton that sometimes appeared weirdly above the
-surface.
-
-In the spring the whole rotted away, but Grim never got rid of the
-claws. To the day of her death they remained embedded in her back.
-
-She now began to find more dangerous enemies. Her various predatory
-attacks, which had not all passed unobserved, attracted an
-ever-increasing amount of attention. In the surrounding districts,
-where she was spoken of as a serpent and a dragon, myths began to be
-formed; she had once more to guard against man.
-
-They fired guns at her, and once she got a couple of stray shot in her
-side, but otherwise escaped with only a fright. Traps were set out, but
-they were fortunately much too small to allow of _her_ getting into
-them.
-
-One day she lay burrowing in the mud, so far down that not even the
-tiniest ripple reached the surface. There were indications
-nevertheless. From time to time little green-bearded, slime-covered
-pieces of reed came up vertically through the water, and lay flat as
-soon as they reached the surface. A farmer's lad, out spearing eels,
-sent his fork down eagerly. He missed his mark--as the shot had done
-before.
-
-One day, in the early summer, however, Grim came very near to finding
-her match.
-
-
-
-
-XIII: A FIGHT WITH AN OTTER
-
-
-The harrier was sitting on her newly-hatched young, and the pair of
-crows were feeding theirs for the last time; it was the time of the
-owls--and the nightingales. Silent and weary, the cuckoo came from the
-meadow-land to the bog, where the twilight enveloped it and hid it on
-its branch.
-
-The willow-thickets and the rushes settled gradually into cool and
-shade; only along the promontories and banks, where the dragonflies
-hunted, did the mid-summer sunlight still hold its ground.
-
-The water began to sparkle with strong, bright colours, and patches of
-yellow, scarlet, and blue floated about, shot with brilliant flakes of
-emerald and purple, which gave darkened reflections of the birch-tops.
-
-Only a few moments before, all the sloping banks of the bog had been
-held by the sun; it shone upon the flowers of the wild chervil and upon
-a narrow strip of orange gravel that had been scraped out of one of the
-banks.
-
-But now it was gone. The fully-opened hawthorn flowers reluctantly gave
-up their sunset blush, and shudderingly paled before the approaching
-gloom.
-
-Suddenly the nightingale up in the thicket becomes silent, stops in the
-middle of its highest trill, and begins to snarl.
-
-A large otter with low-set ears cautiously raises its head above the
-strip of gravel. It sniffs long and continuously, as it stretches its
-round, shaggy neck out over the ridge.
-
-Above the distant banks on the other side of the bog, the first glow of
-the full moon peeps out. Like a monster toadstool, it grows up out of
-the horizon, sending up a cloud of purple into the air. Up and up it
-goes, and when almost half its disc is visible, a group of firs, whose
-tops stand out against it, change to a giant poppy just unfolding.
-
-For a moment the flower stands out perfect, large and round at the end
-of its slender, black stalk, and then the illusion is shattered: from a
-toadstool the poppy has turned into a moon!
-
-Then the otter comes right up out of the earth, with body and tail and
-four legs, and shuffles down the slope. A couple of herons, fishing at
-the edge of the bog, bend their necks and make off with hoarse, shrill
-trumpetings; and a herd of splashing heifers, scenting the approach of
-a beast of prey, begin to growl and snort.
-
-The otter came to the bog every two or three months, when it was tired
-of hunting fish in the lake.
-
-A rover's blood flowed in its veins. Nature had endowed it with a
-peculiarly active power of assimilation, which was probably necessary
-if it was to keep warm in the cold water; it needed daily its own
-weight in fish, and therefore had to be incessantly changing its
-hunting-ground.
-
-It was timid and suspicious, but a great glutton.
-
-Pike, which it used especially to catch in the bogs, were somewhat dry,
-it is true, but after all, one could not have salmon and trout every
-day!
-
-After having labouriously shuffled over a piece of land, and reached
-the largest of the big pools, it allowed itself to glide noiselessly
-from its slip--a path trodden in the grass--into its true element.
-
-A few minutes later there was an unusual disturbance in the water,
-which splashed high up about the dunes and foamed over the banks. A
-wild chase was going on in the depths, and where it passed the rushes
-bowed their sheaves and the flags their fans. Black mud was stirred up
-in whirlpools; seething bubbles came to the surface and burst.
-
-The otter, with a newly-caught fish in its mouth, had been on its way
-out to a little island, intending to have its meal under a sallow, when
-it was suddenly attacked and robbed of its prey. It caught a glimpse of
-the indistinct outline of a great fish, and exasperated at such
-audacity, determined to go in chase of the robber.
-
-An attempt to get beneath Grim, in order to seize her round the gills
-or by the belly, was unsuccessful; at the decisive moment Grim had
-turned aside, so that the otter had to set its teeth where it could.
-And it needed a well-placed grip to hold such a giant fish.
-
-The instant it has taken hold--a little behind the neck--Grim darts
-into deep water with her assailant. The otter backs, extends his fore
-and hind legs far out from his body, and spreads his web, so as to
-offer as much resistance as possible. Just as the weasel lets itself be
-carried away by the hare in whose neck it has fixed itself, so now the
-otter allowed himself to be dragged through the bog by the lynx of the
-waters.
-
-Grim soon sees that this pace is wearing out her strength, and pauses
-for a moment.
-
-As she does so, she feels as if an eel were winding its pliant body
-round her chest. She rolls round, unable to use her fins. She quickly
-regains her balance, however, frees her body from the pressure, and
-sets off, with sudden twists, and leaps from the bottom to the surface,
-turning so suddenly that the fish-snatcher's body swings out and hangs
-down in the water.
-
-But the otter only keeps a firmer hold. He is used to these desperate
-rallies, which always become fiercer and more violent as the quarry is
-on the point of giving in. He takes care, however, in turning, not to
-let any of his legs hang in front of the pike's mouth; he is too well
-acquainted with the teeth of the fresh-water shark!
-
-Up and down, the two well-matched opponents dive incessantly.
-
-Whenever Grim goes to the surface, a puffing and growling is heard. The
-otter hastily gasps for breath, and tightens his hold with his
-fore-claws; but when they are on their way down to the depths, and
-air-bubbles, like silver beads, roll through the water behind him, he
-has only to hold on and let himself go.
-
-Once Grim is lucky. An old snag sticks up in the water, and, in
-turning, the otter's body is dashed against it. It sends a shock
-through the animal, but as Grim for the moment has exhausted her energy
-and succumbed to one of the well-known fits of weakness common to her
-species, the otter once more apparently gets the upper hand.
-
-Thus with varying fortunes the battle rages for some time.
-
-They lie fighting on the surface--a golden-streaked, slimy, scaly fish
-twisted into a knot with a dark, hairy, furred body!
-
-Once more there is a pause in the fighting.
-
-Unobserved by Grim, who has just fallen into one of her apathetic fits,
-the otter endeavours carefully to float the pike up under one of the
-large mounds, in order to drag her up with an effort of strength on to
-dry land; but the attempt fails utterly: he is simply unable to manage
-so great a load.
-
-Now Grim's strength returns once more. With a powerful stroke of her
-tail, she disappears with lightning rapidity from the surface, and goes
-to the bottom with her rider, whose merry-go-round jaunt makes his head
-swim. She is trying to get hold of his leg or body, and therefore
-twists round with him so that he flaps like a loose piece of strap on
-an axle; but she is not sufficiently supple to reach him. Her back
-aches, her flexor muscles hurt. At last she has met with an opponent
-who puts her judgment, her ingenuity, and her endurance to the extreme
-test.
-
-Down on the bottom, sticking out from the bank, are the roots of the
-willow-bushes on the edge. In her mad rush down, Grim has come near
-these, and instinctively seeks shelter beneath them. At full speed she
-runs her long body into the network and sticks fast, rapidly twisting
-her tail-screw both ahead and astern.
-
-The otter treads water now on the right, now on the left side of her,
-and tries, by utilizing the roots as steps, to lift her up with him.
-But in vain; he cannot even stir the huge fish!
-
-His teeth are still far from having forced their way through; it seems
-as if, short and rounded as they are, they cannot reach the bottom. But
-he makes tremendous exertions, whipping his tail in under the
-peat-bank, while with his hind paws he seeks for support in clefts and
-cracks. Suddenly he feels one of his feet seized. The grasp tightens,
-so that his whole leg aches; he tries to draw in his foot, but it is
-held immovable.
-
-A monster crayfish, that has become so stiff with age that it can
-scarcely manage to strike a proper blow with its tail, has made for
-itself, in fear of Grim, a reliable place of refuge in the hole. For a
-long time it has patiently followed the battle through its feelers, and
-hoped that some morsel would fall to its hungry stomach; now, with
-gratitude to Providence, it closes its great claw upon the warm-blooded
-fisher.
-
-A growing uneasiness steals over the otter. He had once been caught by
-the tip of one claw in an otter-trap. The trap was heavy, and had
-dragged him under water; and he had only escaped at the last moment.
-With the grasp on his leg, his lungs begin to warn him, his throat
-contracts, and his eyes seem on the point of bursting. Up! Up! With or
-without his prey!
-
-He has let go of Grim, and now makes his escape from the hole with so
-sudden a jerk that the old crayfish accompanies him; but the dread of
-water, which no living being that breathes with lungs can quite
-overcome, has taken possession of the otter. With all possible speed he
-slips out from among the roots, and is already rising; and as he
-approaches the surface and finds the blessed light beating more and
-more strongly upon the mud about his eyes, he hastens his flight,
-until, with an eager sniff, he reaches the surface.
-
-Grim is close behind him, and as the otter lands, there is a loud
-splash. It would have been all over with the brown beast if the old
-crayfish, on its way down from the surface, where it had at last let go
-its hold, had not dropped like a stone straight into Grim's mouth. Grim
-has now to content herself with sending her opponent a cold, dull,
-fishy glance, and let the Nipper continue its journey down into her
-draw-bag.
-
-The wound that the old giant pike had received was not a dangerous one.
-True, there were two rows of deep cuts made by a pair of thick,
-round-toothed jaws in the flesh on one side of her back; but they
-healed like so many others that she had had in her time. Her back,
-however, was tender for days after, and she found it a little difficult
-to leap.
-
-The impudent, four-footed fisher never went hunting again in _her_
-water-hole. The otter felt quite sure that it was only by good fortune
-that it had not been annihilated by its great, dangerous rival.
-
-
-
-
-XIV: THE ANGLER FROM TOWN
-
-
-The lake had changed since the old angler's death; its former peace and
-poetry were gone. The big swimming-birds had multiplied tremendously,
-and dashed about restlessly every day, swallowing the fish by means of
-constantly improving implements.
-
-One of the latest of these was a ten-horsepower motor-boat, manned by a
-little, sinewy man, thin and elastic, and with a superabundance of
-energy. He was a journalist by profession, and editor of a paper; the
-hurry and unrest of a new age burned in him; whether he wrote or
-refreshed himself with sport, he did it with the same strength and
-enthusiasm.
-
-Grim's first captor had been an old-style votary of the rod and line;
-he loved to cast anchor in some quiet spot, light his pipe, and sit
-watching his lines. The journalist from town was of the very opposite
-temperament, constantly rushing about and hauling in and making fresh
-casts elsewhere.
-
-He had taken a house for the summer by the lake, and among the
-red-currant bushes in the garden he had set up his little aquarium,
-which contained a couple of crayfish, a few perch, and a young pike.
-
-Every morning he dug up worms for his aquarium-fish, and fed them
-carefully.
-
-If neither pike nor perch touched the worms, and the crayfish did not
-take them either when they sank to the bottom, he tranquilly devoted
-himself to his work all day; but if the reverse happened, then the
-leading article would be short; the editor was occupied elsewhere.
-
-One day, when he was sitting in his office in town, the telephone rang.
-His wife was at the other end of the wire, and told him that the pike
-was feeding like mad.
-
-He thrills at the news. His paper has long had news about Grim, the
-mysterious monster. The expedition is all prepared, his tackle is in
-order; he has only been waiting for the signal from the aquarium.
-
-A few hours later the enthusiastic little man, after a forced
-bicycle-ride under the scorching sun of a suffocating July day, finds
-himself among fragrant iris and bog-myrtle. Accompanied by a local
-peat-digger, who, from fear of the monster, has armed himself with a
-gun, he turns off by one of the paths.
-
-The wind is blowing through the local jungle, and rustling its myriads
-of leaves with a sound that to the editor's ears resembles the
-continual crumpling of a huge newspaper. The stiff, bluish-green
-rushes, with their black joints, bend caressingly about him, and the
-strong, spicy scent of wild mint, mingled with the sharp, acrid vapour
-from the bog, ascends to his nostrils.
-
-For a moment he stands among the rushes, drawing deep breaths as he
-listens enraptured to the deafening music of nature. The larks are
-carolling above his head, and the wild ducks rise with a great deal of
-splashing and fuss; now a snipe comes sailing past and sinks in a long,
-concave curve.
-
-A sunbeam finds its way into the jungle, and showers a cascade of
-shifting, dancing patches of light over him. He perspires and pants,
-and wipes his forehead; he blows his nose after the manner of primitive
-man; he has once more become the kind of being that the Almighty called
-Man, when He placed him on the earth.
-
-At an opening in the rushy margin, where an old, fern-clad ridge runs
-out into the water, he gets his rod ready.
-
-And now let Grim beware! Here comes a fisherman with shrewdness and
-intelligence! His clothes are the colour of the heron's feathers, his
-rod painted sky-blue, and his line is grey-green like the long stalks
-of the water-plants.
-
-He creeps along the mossy, boggy bank, taking care to avoid all
-disturbance of the water. The pike is timid, and easily put to flight,
-watchful and agile; if he only breaks a reed, if he only lets a
-snail-shell drop into the water, it will perceive him. He finds out
-places where he thinks the fish is lying, and expectantly drops his
-bait beyond the edge of the reeds on the point of land.
-
-The peat-cutter follows him at some distance. He has strict orders on
-no account to utter a syllable, and to tread with extreme caution and
-care. He has his gun all ready, for he is thinking with misgiving of
-all the stories he has heard about the fabulous "serpent." He
-recollects that Sidse, old Anders' girl, has seen it. She was watering
-the cows when it shot up out of the deep water with a splash, and shook
-itself like a dog. She had distinctly heard the jingling of the scales
-in its mane.
-
-And Ole, the wheelwright, too.
-
-"Such a head!" he had said. "As big as a calf's! And the skin round the
-corners of its mouth all in great, thick folds!" As to its eyes, he had
-said they were yellow like those of a hare.
-
-He must remember to tell _that_ to the newspaper-man.
-
-At that moment he hears a warning whistle, the signal to stop and
-remain where he is, so as not to spoil possible chances by his sudden
-appearance.
-
-An electric shock has darted through the sportsman, and for a moment he
-stands as if petrified, in keen suspense.
-
-He has felt a bite, and with lowered rod he slowly and carefully lets
-out plenty of line.
-
-The pike has taken the bait, or so he firmly believes; but he waits
-minute after minute, and the line never moves.
-
-Alas! the hook is caught in something! His best and strongest hook,
-selected from among hundreds for this very expedition! In vain he
-employs every artifice; he cannot free it. He will have to give up his
-fishing and abandon the line.
-
-What an embarrassing story to have to tell! People have such nasty
-tongues. And the peat-digger over there! No, that would be too much!
-Besides, this suffocating heat has long tempted him to have a bath out
-here, so he promptly strips and goes in. He is swimming along the edge
-of the reeds where there is a little open water, when all at once he
-feels his left leg seized. It is as though a pair of garden shears had
-suddenly cut into it!
-
-Involuntarily he begins to shout and kick, but the next moment he is
-dragged out and down towards deep water. He feels the teeth of the
-monster sinking deeper and deeper into his leg, and is on the point of
-losing his senses as he cries aloud for help.
-
-The peat-cutter hurries up with all possible speed, just in time to
-catch the outline of a long, black shadow, working under water. At
-haphazard he fires off both charges. At the same time the editor
-shrieks still more horribly, and raises himself in the water. A cold,
-sharp edge, as of a knife, is drawn along his body, as Grim, frightened
-by the shots, disappears beneath him.
-
-Other peat-cutters come up, and together they pull the unfortunate
-editor ashore. The blood is spouting from his leg in several places,
-but one of the men ties his trouser-strap round it. Some one telephones
-for a doctor, a carriage is fetched, and the editor is then driven to
-his home.
-
-The wound was a serious one. The doctor had to wash and bandage it. On
-the outer side of the calf, the deep marks of Grim's upper teeth were
-visible, in two rows at a distance of more than a hand's breadth from
-one another, wound after wound, going deep into the flesh. It was
-clearly the bite from the jaws of some great animal.
-
-The oracle's prophecy that the editor would get a bite had in truth
-been fulfilled!
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-This occurrence put fresh life into the stories circulating in the
-district about the escaped crocodile, or the serpent, or the dragon,
-that always frequented black bogs.
-
-The monster must be removed. For a long time cattle and horses had not
-been safe when they came to the watering-places; and now it attacked
-people when bathing!
-
-What sort of an animal was it?
-
-People demanded that the local board should provide them with an ocular
-demonstration.
-
-Several of the holes were emptied, but they were the wrong ones.
-Through others nets were drawn with a team of horses at each end. Grim
-was almost caught two or three times, and only saved herself by
-burrowing into the mud, and letting the net pass over her.
-
-Then they set to work to drain the whole bog. They started the old
-windmills from the peat-cutting time, whirled all the screws about, and
-pumped the water from one large pool into another.
-
-Grim was imprisoned, and at last lay buried in slush. Had they only
-gone on for another day they would have discovered her; but,
-fortunately for her, the wind dropped, and when it seemed to be all
-over with her, the high dam which kept in the water of the neighbouring
-pool broke, and all their labour was wasted.
-
-After this the enthusiasm and interest cooled.
-
-Who said it was a crocodile? Had anyone seen it? Was it not more likely
-to have been an otter? For the local board did not believe in serpents
-or in dragons!
-
-
-
-
-XV: LUCK
-
-
-He climbed over some barbed-wire fences, and in doing so made a large
-number of ventilation holes in his nether garments.
-
-The primitive fishing-tackle that dangled behind his back consisted of
-a piece of rope with a couple of beer-barrel bungs for a float, and a
-length of strong, home-twisted iron wire for a trace. The great hook,
-which must have been intended to catch whales with, was a clumsy steel
-one that the village smith's apprentice, who was just finishing his
-time, had made for him; the rod was a short, thick beanpole.
-
-Little Rasmus was an angler with no shrewdness or intelligence worth
-mentioning. In his hand he carried an old, battered water-can, in which
-were his bait--a few bastard carp, caught by trawling with an
-osier-basket in the village pond. They had not been treated _secundum
-artem_; they had not spent the night in a tub under a running tap, and
-had not felt any salutary coolness of the gills from having small
-pieces of ice dropped into their tepid water from time to time. No, a
-little grass and mud at the bottom of the can was all they had had in
-which to keep themselves alive.
-
-Rasmus tried several, and at last found one that could just flap its
-tail. From habit, and for luck, he spat upon it.
-
-The pools were smooth and clear in the cool September air. To look down
-into them was like looking through a magnifying-glass at the bottom,
-where brown-shelled, fresh-water mussels and white-shelled planorbes
-were discernible among the water-grass and mosses. The reed-tassels,
-that had formerly been so blue, were now brown and downy at the tip;
-and all the flags among the rushes trembled under the weight of their
-heavy seed-pods.
-
-Rasmus quickly made ready his line and went out.
-
-"Aatch!" cried a snipe, as soon as he set foot in the bog, and a little
-later he put up seven or eight more, which fluttered along in uneven
-zigzags over the muddy herbage, and then suddenly rose in steep,
-winding curves. With interest the boy watched them in their rapid
-flight, saw how they hastened the strokes of their wings and circled
-round the bog, until one by one they broke from the rank and
-disappeared in a downward dive.
-
-At the end of a ridge, which ran out in a blunt promontory in one of
-the pits, he tried a throw, and stood for a little while waiting; but
-as the bait had found a hole in which to hide, and the big bung-float
-lay still, he pulled it up, and went, with his rope-line gathered over
-his outstretched arm, to a new place.
-
-He came into a thicket of meadow-sweet and wild raspberries.
-Late-flowering blue forget-me-nots covered the ground. He plucked one,
-smelt it, but threw it away as the sound of a great splash reached his
-ear.
-
-By balancing along a plank he got on to a little solitary island
-surrounded by duck-weed. The plank swayed very much under him, and the
-island sank alarmingly beneath his weight; but he could see that it had
-borne people before, and he was on it now! A bushy grey willow grew in
-the middle of the island, and a spike of purple loose-strife raised its
-head above it.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Grim was lying in a flat, muddy bay, hidden in a large clump of
-mares'-tails. A fat, lazy carp was half swimming, half floating in the
-open water in front of her. Had she not been in the bog with its
-scarcity of food, the very sight of such carrion would have made her
-sick; as it was, she took it with thankfulness, and ran at it with such
-greed that she gulped it straight down, and got a large steel hook far
-down in her stomach.
-
-For a moment she felt it was an uncomfortable mouthful; the flabby
-morsel must have gone down the wrong way. Well, she would disgorge it!
-
-But she could not, and there was a thick stalk like a water-lily stem
-that kept tickling her throat. She was going to spit the stalk out,
-when she noticed that it was rooted in a tuft of reeds.
-
-"Rubbish!" thought Grim, as she flourished her fins and twisted her
-tail; for she meant to get out of this warm corner. She set her teeth
-and started off. The mares' tails broke and the rushes curtsied as she
-crashed along; everything rocked--the bank and the bay, the reeds and
-the island; it seemed to the boy as if a pig were running round and
-rooting about under the water.
-
-The enthusiastic fisherman in grey-weather cloth, with sky-blue rod,
-silk line, and running tackle, had never had the luck to catch this
-monster; and here was little Rasmus with his bean-pole, his steel hook
-and his tethering-rope, and his tackle held!
-
-Grim pulled at the line till the rod was half under water. The boy had
-all but let go, when a sudden violent jerk upset him. He had no time to
-save himself, and with the rod in his arms he fell into the
-willow-bush. The rope tightened so that the strands creaked and
-groaned; but the rod was fast in the bush.
-
-Rasmus thinks of making for the shore by the plank, but sees, to his
-terror, that the island is afloat. The fish on his hook has pulled it
-away from its anchorage, and is now dragging him out into the deep
-water. The water bubbles about the rope and foams out from the island,
-as if it were the bow of a racing-yacht. Sometimes the little raft
-heels over horribly, so that Rasmus's wooden shoes are filled with
-water. He has quite given himself up for lost, and is repeating the
-Lord's Prayer.
-
-In the meantime, Grim is dragging him, like a second Tom Thumb, from
-one end of the pool to the other. She twists and turns, dives down head
-first to the bottom, only to shoot straight up a few seconds later to
-the surface to lash it into foam and waves. Great bubbles and myriads
-of atoms of horrid, black peat-sediment float like swelling clouds in
-all directions.
-
-Now and then the boy catches sight of a wrinkled, moss-grown back about
-as long as a bull's. It looks to him like one of the ancient oaks of
-the bog coming up to lie and float on the surface.
-
-Gradually, as the large, pointed steel hook enters farther and farther
-into Grim's intestines, and makes her cold, red blood flow the wrong
-way, her movements become less and less rapid.
-
-The water makes things dim; she no longer sees clearly, and runs full
-tilt into banks and clumps of reeds. She feels delightfully surfeited,
-and darts about the pool with the sensation of dragging with her the
-greatest booty she had ever taken in her life. How it seems to fill her
-stomach! At last, _at last_ she is satiated, so that her throat seems
-ready to burst and her jaws to part asunder; and all at once she
-notices the same strange over-burdened feeling that she had had that
-day many years ago, when in greed she had swallowed the big perch.
-
-Wildly and recklessly she drags on the rope, careering around with her
-little captor; but every time she jerks him off an island, or through
-thickly-matted vegetation, she drives the point of the iron nearer to
-her heart. At last, in the fever of death, she rushes right in to the
-bank, and runs the boy aground on an island of reeds.
-
-She lies floating just below the surface, and Rasmus, who now and then
-between the water-plants catches sight of her greenish-yellow belly and
-black-spotted tail-fin, cries out in terror.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The old pike of many adventures is wandering in her mind. Is it the
-big, black perch that she has at last succeeded in consuming? Is it the
-bull with horns? Or is it one of the big swimming-bird's young?
-
-Yes, _that_ is it! This time she has succeeded in getting hold of its
-long leg, and has at last swallowed it and has it safely in her
-stomach.
-
-But it weighs her down, so that she can no longer keep in a horizontal
-position. Yes, she feels that distinctly; it is so tremendously
-satisfying that her tail is sinking and her head rising, and now all at
-once she rises slowly and stiffly from the water.
-
-The boy almost goes crazy at the sight, and involuntarily covers his
-eyes with his hands, so fantastically horrible does it appear. Out of
-the black, muddy water and the purple, poisonous-green plants from
-which the gases of decomposition release great, bladdery bubbles,
-stands out Grim's huge, crocodile head, cold and staring.
-
-The flabby, wrinkled skin of the throat vibrates with her violent,
-convulsive gulps, and the lower jaw of more than arm's length is pushed
-out beyond the upper, exposing to view the extreme points of a row of
-long, dagger-like teeth at the shrunken corners of the mouth.
-
-The monster now turns slowly on her axis, her big, expressionless,
-watery eye, looking, with its dirty grey colour, like an unwashed
-window in an empty, deserted house, projects, fixed and blind, from her
-huge head.
-
-The iron has reached her swimming-bladder, and robbed her of the power
-of navigation. She grows dizzy, and like a great float at the bite of a
-big fish, she goes down silently and straight.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-A man busy ploughing heard the boy's cry, and running up, learned what
-was the matter: a monster of an animal, that Rasmus could not pull up,
-had sailed over half the bog with him!
-
-The man fished up the plank, and helped the boy ashore. Then he fetched
-his horses, harnessed them to the line, and drew Grim slowly, but
-surely, up on to the bank.
-
-She lay that night moored to a birch-tree. Life was long since extinct.
-
-A message was telephoned to the innkeeper, who collected items of news
-for the editor's paper, "that Peter Jenn's son had caught, under the
-strangest circumstances, a specimen of the great sea-serpent. It
-resembled a prehistoric toad rather than a fish of the present day."
-
-The following day the whole district gathered at the spot, and the
-schoolmaster appeared with a man of science who had been summoned.
-
-"Why, it's a pike," said the professor, as soon as he saw it, "an
-unusually large and old specimen, it is true, but still only a pike."
-And it must be confessed that he felt a little hurt at having been
-called out on so long a journey for nothing.
-
-For many years afterwards Rasmus was the hero of the village, and from
-that day he never went by the name of Rasmus Jenn, but was called
-Rasmus Pike.
-
-THE END
-
-
-
-
-THE BORZOI-GYLDENDAL BOOKS
-
-The firm of Gyldendal [Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk Forlag] is the
-oldest and greatest publishing house in Scandinavia, and has been
-responsible, since its inception in 1770, for giving to the world some
-of the greatest Danish and Norwegian writers of three centuries. Among
-them are such names as Ibsen, Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Pontoppidan,
-Brandes, Gjellerup, Hans Christian Andersen, and Knut Hamsun, the Nobel
-Prize winner for 1920, whose works I am publishing in America.
-
-It is therefore with particular satisfaction that I announce the
-completion of arrangements whereby I shall bring out in this country
-certain of the publications of this famous house. The books listed
-below are the first of the _Borzoi-Gyldendal_ books.
-
-Jenny
-
-A novel translated from the Norwegian of Sigrid Undset by W. Emme.
-
-The Sworn Brothers
-
-A Tale of the Early Days of Iceland. Translated from the Danish of
-Gunnar Gunnarsson [Icelandic] by C. Field and W. Emme.
-
-Grim: the Story of a Pike
-
-ALFRED A. KNOPF, _Publisher_, NEW YORK
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Grim: The Story of a Pike, by Svend Fleuron
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE ***
-
-***** This file should be named 40921.txt or 40921.zip *****
-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
-        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/9/2/40921/
-
-Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
-will be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
-rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
-research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
-redistribution.
-
-
-
-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
-http://gutenberg.org/license).
-
-
-Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works
-
-1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
-
-1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
-paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
-collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
-are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
-the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
-a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
-Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
-States.
-
-1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
-copied or distributed:
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
-or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
-1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
-terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
-word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
-form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
-that
-
-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
-     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
-     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
-     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
-     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
-     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
-     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
-     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
-     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
-     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
-     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-     License.  You must require such a user to return or
-     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
-     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
-     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
-     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
-     of receipt of the work.
-
-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
-collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
-your equipment.
-
-1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
-your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
-refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
-opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
-the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
-
-
-Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
-people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
-and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
-
-
-Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
-Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
-http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
-throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
-809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
-business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
-information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
-page at http://pglaf.org
-
-For additional contact information:
-     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
-     Chief Executive and Director
-     gbnewby@pglaf.org
-
-
-Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
-particular state visit http://pglaf.org
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
-To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
-
-
-Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
-with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
-
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
-unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
-
-
-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
-
-     http://www.gutenberg.org
-
-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/40921.zip b/40921.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index c687223..0000000
--- a/40921.zip
+++ /dev/null