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.