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.