Part 19

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.