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Only the fogasch and schille are sent to Vienna and Pesth, where they fetch high prices; all the rest go for a song and even so there is room for a large profit, for in one haul they had caught three hundredweight of fish. This Timar is indeed a favorite of fortune! The unsold fish are packed in baskets and put in the ice-house, whence they will be sent to the Vessprimer market.
You might say to-morrow, 'While this cold lasts, I will be off to Fured to see how the fogasch get on, and then you might shut yourself up in your other house here, and wait till some one taps at your window and says 'Now. Then you would come back here." "And I should do that?" exclaimed Timar, shuddering. Athalie looked him up and down contemptuously.
Michael approved the suggestion, and assured the men they should get a reward. When they had finished with the fogasch, the short winter's day had come to a close; but only in the sky, not on the ice there it was lively enough. From every village came the people with baskets and hampers and wooden kegs; in the kegs was wine, in the hampers pork, but the baskets were meant for the fish.
They can not leap out, because the ice shuts them in, and even the fogasch can not as usual burrow in the mud, to get under the net, for the weight of his splashing companions leaves him no space to work. The fishermen lay hold on the rope and draw steadily. The united exertion of twenty men shows how great is the strain on them; it must be several hundred-weight.
Before the spring comes he will have cleared the Platten-See, so that not a single perch, not a shad nor a roach, not a garfish, let alone a fogasch, will be left in it. And he sends them all to Vienna. As if that was what fogasch swam in the Balaton lake for that those Germans might eat them! The damned scoundrel! The government ought to set a price on his head.
When they got him out he gave one of the men a blow with his tail which knocked him backward on the ice. But that was his last effort; the next moment he was dead. No one has ever held a living fogasch in his hand. It is thought that his lungs burst as he is taken out of water, and he dies instantly.
The dog-fish were knocked on the head, the net shook out many beautiful white fogasch and schille; but the fogasch-king would not show himself. "He has got away again," grumbled the old chief. "No, no; he is in the net still!" said the hauling-men, clinching their teeth. "I feel by my arms how he is pushing and fighting; if only he does not break the net."
He always had luck. "I luck!" echoed Timar to himself, sighing heavily. "I would almost venture to bet that we shall catch the king of the fogasch himself." "How do you mean, the king?"
When he was opened they found a large fogasch in his inside, quite recently swallowed; his flesh was overlaid with a thick layer of yellow fat, and white as linen. "Now, honored sir, we will send him to the gracious lady," said the old fisherman. "We will pack him in ice, and your honor will write a letter and say he is the king of the fogasch. Whoever eats him will eat a king's flesh."
"It is an old fogasch which every fisherman on the lake knows, for we have all had him in our nets in turn; but no one can land him, for when he finds he is caught he works a hole at the bottom with his snout, and manages to get out of the net. He is a regular rogue; we have put a price on his head, for he destroys as many young fry as three fishermen.
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