Horne Fisher

“ But from the top of the house to the bottom, from the walls round the park to the pond in the center, there was no trace of Lord Bulmer, dead or alive. Horne Fisher realized that a chilling premonition had already prevented him from expecting to find the man alive. But his bald brow was wrinkled over an entirely new and unnatural problem, in not finding the man at all. ”

“ Horne Fisher evidently allowed for all the neurotic possibilities of Archer and the dissipated habits of Herries; and whatever his faith in their present firmness, did not unduly tax their time and attention, even in the case of the Prime Minister. He had got the consent of the latter finally to the committing of the important documents, with the orders to the Western armies, to the care of a less conspicuous and more solid person—an uncle of his named Horne Hewitt, a rather colorless country squire who had been a good soldier, and was the military adviser of the committee. ”

“ Why don’t you speak plainer?”
“If I spoke plainer you would understand me less,” said Horne Fisher.
“All the same I should try,” said March, still without lifting his head.
“Oh, very well,” replied Fisher, with a sigh; “the plain truth is, of course, that it’s a bad business. Everybody knows it’s a bad business who knows anything about it. But it’s always happening, and in one way one can hardly blame them. They get stuck on to a foreign princess that’s as stiff as a Dutch doll, and they have their fling. In this case it was a pretty big fling.” ”

“ When the detective had gone off to busy himself with that department of the business, to telephone and write his report, when Herries had gone back, probably to the brandy bottle, and the Prime Minister had blandly sauntered away toward a comfortable armchair in another part of the garden, Horne Fisher spoke directly to Harold March.
"My friend," he said, "I want you to come with me at once; there is no one else I can trust so much as that. The journey will take us most of the day, and the chief business cannot be done till nightfall. So we can talk things over thoroughly on the way. ”

“ The foremost was a tall, fair, rather languid-looking man with a bald brow and a high-bridged nose; his companion was a younger man with light, curly hair and frank, and even innocent, eyes. Symon scarcely seemed to hear the newcomers; it seemed almost as if he had not realized that the return of the light revealed his brooding attitude. Then he started in a guilty fashion, and when he saw the elder of the two strangers, his pale face seemed to turn a shade paler.
“Why it’s Horne Fisher!” and then after a pause he said in a low voice, “I’m in the devil of a hole, Fisher.” ”

“ He was right about me.”
“About you?” asked Harold March in some wonder.
“I am the man who knows too much to know anything, or, at any rate, to do anything,” said Horne Fisher. “I don’t mean especially about Ireland. I mean about England. I mean about the whole way we are governed, and perhaps the only way we can be governed. You asked me just now what became of the survivors of that tragedy. Well, Wilson recovered and we managed to persuade him to retire. But we had to pension that damnable murderer more magnificently than any hero who ever fought for England. ”

“ He could not find out how Verner had originally made his money.
“He must have kept it specially dark,” said Horne Fisher to himself. “It must be something he’s really ashamed of. Hang it all! what is a man ashamed of nowadays?” ”

“ Whether that Hungarian fugitive would ever be caught appeared to Horne Fisher to be highly doubtful; nor can it be pretended that he displayed any very demoniac detective energy in the matter as he leaned back in the boat cushions, smoking, and watching the swaying reeds slide past.
"It was a very good notion to hop up on to the bridge," he said. "An empty boat means very little; he hasn't been seen to land on either bank, and he's walked off the bridge without walking on to it, so to speak. He's got twenty-four hours' start; his mustaches will disappear, and then he will disappear. ”

“ For some reason it looked a very artificial lake; indeed, the whole scene was like a classical landscape with a touch of Watteau; the Palladian facade of the house pale in the moon, and the same silver touching the very pagan and naked marble nymph in the middle of the pond. Rather to his surprise, he found another figure there beside the statue, sitting almost equally motionless; and the same silver pencil traced the wrinkled brow and patient face of Horne Fisher, still dressed as a hermit and apparently practicing something of the solitude of a hermit. ”

“ There was a silence broken by breathing from the corner and the murmur of the rising storm, that came in through the small grating above the man’s head. Horne Fisher continued:
“Are you only a servant, perhaps, that rather sinister old servant who was butler to Hawker and Verner? If so, you are certainly the only link between the two periods. But if so, why do you degrade yourself to serve this dirty foreigner, when you at least saw the last of a genuine national gentry? People like you are generally at least patriotic. Doesn’t England mean anything to you, Mr. ”

“ Captain Boyle frowned in a slightly puzzled fashion. Being cloudily conscious of never having heard of the Zimmernes in his life, he could only remark, stolidly:
"Well, one can't be a Little Englander."
Horne Fisher smiled, and he had a pleasant smile.
"Every man out here is a Little Englander," he said. "He wishes he were back in Little England."
"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm afraid," said the younger man, rather suspiciously. "One would think you didn't really admire Hastings or—or—anything."
"I admire him no end," replied Fisher. "He's by far the best man for this post ”

“ He was only one of those young men who cannot support the burden of consciousness unless they are doing something, and whose conceptions of doing something are limited to a game of some kind. He was dark and well dressed in a light holiday fashion, and Fisher recognized him at once as a young man named James Bullen, called, for some unknown reason, Bunker. He was the nephew of Sir Isaac; but, what was much more important at the moment, he was also the private secretary of the Prime Minister.
“Hullo, Bunker!” observed Horne Fisher. “You’re the sort of man I wanted to see. ”

“ I don't include you; you've worked too hard to enjoy playing at work."
"I sometimes think," said Harker, "that you conceal a horrid secret of being useful sometimes. Haven't you come down here to see Number One before he goes on to Birmingham?"
Horne Fisher answered, in a lower voice: "Yes; and I hope to be lucky enough to catch him before dinner. He's got to see Sir Isaac about something just afterward."
"Hullo!" exclaimed Harker. "Sir Isaac's finished his fishing. I know he prides himself on getting up at sunrise and going in at sunset." ”

“ But nobody could.”
“I rather think I could,” said another voice from outside the group, and they turned in surprise to realize that the man in the black robe had spoken again.
“You!” said the colonel, sharply. “And how do you propose to play the detective?”
“I do not propose to play the detective,” answered the other, in a clear voice like a bell. “I propose to play the magician. One of the magicians you show up in India, Colonel.”
No one spoke for a moment, and then Horne Fisher surprised everybody by saying, “Well, let’s go upstairs, and this gentleman can have a try.” ”

“ The agent was eying him with a curious expression, surly but not entirely unsympathetic. “Well,” he said, slowly, “you have to do these things in a regular way, you know, or people don’t understand. I’ve had a lot of experience, and I’m afraid what you say wouldn’t do. People understand slanging squires in a general way, but those personalities aren’t considered fair play. Looks like hitting below the belt.”
“Old Wilkins hasn’t got a belt, I suppose,” replied Horne Fisher. “Verner can hit him anyhow, and nobody must say a word. ”

“ Jenkins, a commonplace little man in loud tweeds, whom everybody else seemed to treat with a sort of affection, as if he were a baby.
The irrepressible Chancellor of the Exchequer was still talking about the birds he had brought down, the birds that Burke and Halkett had brought down, and the birds that Jenkins, their host, had failed to bring down. It seemed to be a sort of sociable monomania.
“You and your big game,” he ejaculated, aggressively, to Burke. “Why, anybody could shoot big game. You want to be a shot to shoot small game.”
“Quite so,” interposed Horne Fisher. ”

“ Hertz acutely remarks that the incident, as related by Borron, is not of such importance as to justify the stress laid upon the name, Rich Fisher, by later writers. [26] We may also note in this connection that the Grail romances never employ the form 'Wise Fisher,' which, if the origin of the name were that proposed above, we might reasonably expect to find. It is obvious that a satisfactory solution of the problem must be sought elsewhere.
In my opinion the key to the puzzle is to be found in the rightful understanding of the Fish-Fisher symbolism. ”

“ Fisher, her eyes going steadily line by line down the page and not a word of it getting through into her consciousness, is foolish of friends. It is condemning one to a premature death. One should continue (of course with dignity) to develop, however old one may be. She had nothing against developing, against further ripeness, because as long as one was alive one was not dead—obviously, decided Mrs. Fisher, and development, change, ripening, were life. ”

“ How the nations are drunken and are sporting in their shame!
Even scoffing at our Savior and profane his holy name;
Far more blind than Belshazzar, who so trembled with appal,
They still riot on to judgment, with their doom upon the wall.
Brother Warner was not gifted in writing tunes. This necessary counterpart was supplied in J. C. Fisher and his wife, Allie R., also in H. R. Jeffrey, a brother who lived in northern Indiana. Fisher frequently wrote both words and music, as did also Jeffrey. ”

“ They owned no pockets, and were, with the exception of the legitimate outlet, continuous in the circumference of the waistband. No dangling strings gave them an appearance of senile imbecility. Were it not for a certain rigidity, sternness, and mental inflexibility,—we will call it military ardour,—with which they were imbued, they would have created envy in the bosom of a fox-hunter.
Mr. Horne was no fox-hunter, but still he seemed to be irresistibly taken with the lady-like propensity of wishing to wear them. ”

“ Fisher, sternly contemplating Lady Caroline. “Not an idea in her head except vanity.”
“But there are no men here,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “so how can it be improper? Have you noticed,” she inquired of Mrs. Fisher, who endeavoured to pretend she did not hear, “how difficult it is to be improper without men?”
Mrs. Fisher neither answered her nor looked at her; but Scrap looked at her, and did that with her mouth which in any other mouth would have been a faint grin. Seen from without, across the bowl of nasturtiums, it was the most beautiful of brief and dimpled smiles. ”

“ Ben Fisher passed and paused.
“Pretty, ain’t she?” said the old woman; “a dainty mossel for any man.”
“Ay,” said Fisher quietly, “ay,” and passed on, wondering to himself, as many another man has done before him—why this girl was so priceless in his eyes—and why, seeing that she was so, he might not have her rather than this reckless outlaw, who would make her the toy of his idle hours, and when she became a burden to him throw her aside, like a worn-out horse or a dog he had no further use for. ”

“ Ruthlessly Fisher tore out the wondrous machine. He had no time and no inclination to examine it. He caught up a newspaper and hastily enfolded it. He thrust the bundle into his open travelling-bag. Then he screwed the silver top firmly upon the Baron’s head, and replaced the skull-cap and the wig.
All this was done before the servant answered the bell. “The Baron Savitch is ill,” said Fisher to the attendant, when he came. “There is no cause for alarm. Send at once to the Hotel de l’Athénée for his valet, Auguste.” In twenty seconds Fisher was in a cab, whirling toward the Station St. Lazare. ”

“ There was nothing to be done, and Fisher lay awake all night, listening to every sound, and reproaching himself over and over again (as one will do when everything goes wrong) that he had made such a mess of everything this term. ”

“ It was after he had seen me several times as Sir Joseph Porter that he invited me to bring a few of my colleagues and spend an afternoon with him at his home in London. I reproduce his very typical letter on another page. My recollections of that afternoon are very delightful. Lord Fisher was a wonderful veteran, and it was difficult afterwards to realise that a fortnight later he was stricken down with his last illness, to which he succumbed in the following July. ”

“ Fisher, and she will have it that 'Liza Em'ly's put her father into the book, soul and body. There's a man called Mr. Lexicon as is a lawyer in the book, and Mrs. Fisher says it's the minister. I wouldn't swear as it wasn't the minister myself, but I hate to believe it, for a girl as'll put her father in a book would be equal to most anything, I should suppose. But Mrs. Fisher's sure it's the minister; she says she knew him right off by his ear-muffs. Only 'Liza Em'ly has disguised the ear-muffs by calling them overshoes. Mr. Lexicon has always got on his overshoes. ”