Ventnor

“ The longest, and certainly the most interesting, excursions to be made from Ventnor are those to Carisbrooke and to Freshwater. The first leads you into the very heart of the island, through lanes that must be the boweriest in all England. Often the road-bed drops for a long way into a deep cutting. Ivies cover all the sides, ferns, vetches, campions and arums spring thickly amid them, and the tall, straggling hedges of dog-roses, brambles and hawthorn that top the banks are luxuriantly overrun with honeysuckle, filling the whole air with its spicy fragrance. ”

“ I thought of the scrawny lilacs and woody rosebushes in some of our courtyards, and blushed, or, rather, I shall blush if ever I see an English eye upon them; for (shame to us!) it is the detection, and not the sin, that calls up the blush.
Our first stop after leaving Ventnor was at St Lawrence's Church, the smallest in England; you shall have its dimensions from some poetry we bought of the beadle, his own manufacture.
The poet-beadle's brains, you may think, were graduated by the same scale as St. Lawrence's Church. ”

“ Ventnor's fizz was good and plentiful, his old Madeira absolutely first chop, and the only other man present a teetotal curate, who withdrew with the ladies to talk his parish shop. Favoured by these circumstances, and the perception that Ventnor was an agreeable fellow, Bob Pillin yielded to his secret itch to get near the subject of his affections.
“Do you happen,” he said airily, “to know a Mrs. Larne—relative of old Heythorp's—rather a handsome woman-she writes stories.” ”

“ But whatever might happen to others, Mr. Graham Ventnor was never crowded. A first class compartment was reserved for him and his friends. No resident in the suburb would have ventured to profane the privacy of that apartment; they were respectful people. On one occasion, when Mr. Ventnor was a few moments late, and the train was being kept back for him, a stranger, desperate in his search for a seat, ventured to enter the sacred precincts. ”

“ If it were he would never trust a man's face again. But Ventnor's well-balanced arguments swayed him. The course indicated was the only decent one. It was humanly impossible for a man to chide his daughter and flout her rescuer within an hour of finding them.
Lord Ventnor played his cards with a deeper design. He bowed to the inevitable. Iris said she loved his rival. Very well. ”

“ Mr. Ventnor ran his hand over his whiskers, and, entering a room, was impressed at once by its air of domesticity. On a sofa a handsome woman and a pretty young girl were surrounded by sewing apparatus and some white material. The girl looked up, but the elder lady rose.
Mr. Ventnor said easily
“You know my young friend, Mr. Robert Pillin, I think.”
The lady, whose bulk and bloom struck him to the point of admiration, murmured in a full, sweet drawl:
“Oh! Ye-es. Are you from Messrs. Scrivens?” ”

“ Just above Ventnor, where the down is steepest, and almost at its top, is a wishing well; but if one would have his wish fulfilled, made while drinking its waters, he must climb to the spring without casting one backward glance. ”

“ There had been a bitter irony in the situation when Lardner had appealed to him, without a doubt of his ability, to save poor Sharman from ruin. Nothing would have pleased Ventnor better, if Sharman had required the assistance and he had been in a position to give it. He was not quite a common thief; all he had valued in money was the power that it gave him to command the respect of his fellows and to do good. ”

“ But during the last year Charles Ventnor had realised that the old chap's star had definitely set—when that happens, of course, there is no more glamour, and the time has come to get your money. Weakness in oneself and others is despicable! Besides, he had food for thought, and descending the stairs he chewed it: He smelt a rat—creatures for which both by nature and profession he had a nose. Through Bob Pillin, on whom he sometimes dwelt in connection with his younger daughter, he knew that old Pillin and old Heythorp had been friends for thirty years and more. ”

“ I perceive, his life in general lay heavier on him than it had done before; his mood of mind is grown more sombre;—indeed the very solitude of this Ventnor as a place, not to speak of other solitudes, must have been new and depressing. But he admits no hypochondria, now or ever; occasionally, though rarely, even flashes of a kind of wild gayety break through. He works steadily at his task, with all the strength left him; endures the past as he may, and makes gallant front against the world. ”

“ The "plague of building" lighted on Ventnor: almost every possible and impossible spot has been used for lodging—houses, hotels, shops, villas, churches, situated with utter disregard to the natural lines of the place. The building still goes on. There are everywhere ugly scars in the chalk-banks that Nature has not had time to heal: in short, Ventnor is spoiled for those who remember it in its early days, and for aristocratic dwellers roundabout, but it is a case of the greatest good to the greatest number ”

“ Everybody, Uncle John included, had been vilifying the new purchase, when young Ventnor broke in with affected drawl, saying: "Ah, yes, but a fellah, you know, should not ride such a horse unless he knows how to prevent him rolling. It ain't safe—ah—you know."
Grace flew up in arms in a moment, and, with her eyes flashing with anger, said: "I do not believe, Lord Ventnor, that you or any man could have prevented the horse rolling. My cousin Ned can ride as well as most men, and" (here came the unkindest cut of all) "anyhow I do not think he would have turned away from Cleasby brook." ”

“ Steve Ventnor forgot to be frightened and stood leaning on his club roaring with laughter, for the Sphynx’s dignity had always been a fearful and wonderful thing to him. He heard the voices of the women behind him, pleading with him to run, but in his heart Steve Ventnor made a mighty resolution that run he would not. He had no dignity like Jimmy’s to lose, but the spectacle Jimmy made decided him. It took some strength of mind to moderate his pace as he picked up Patricia’s red parasol and walked toward the [264] fence. ”

“ In the middle of the 19th century it was only a small fishing hamlet, now it extends along the shore for a distance of about 2 m., including Bonchurch to the east. It possesses assembly rooms, a literary and scientific institution, an esplanade, a pier and extensive recreation grounds. The churches of Ventnor are all modern, but that of St Boniface at Bonchurch is a small Norman building, perhaps the oldest in the island. ”

“ Steve Ventnor toiled wearily up the hill at the heels of his caddy, struggling for his lost composure. He caught up with Aurora at a point half-way up where he took the golf bag from her shoulder and faced her again.
“Won’t you answer me, Aurora?” he pleaded, breathlessly.
“No, I won’t,” she said, calmly. “You swore—horribly—in the bushes.”
[258]
“I didn’t.”
“I heard you,” firmly. “I’ll never marry a man who swears,” and she hurried on. When Ventnor joined the others, he found Patricia sitting on a rock making up the score, which at the present moment stood: Ventnor—20; McLemore—9. ”

“ The somewhat confused appearance of Ventnor is no doubt owing to its unexpected advance having prevented the adoption of any uniform ground-plan, as would no doubt have been done could the proprietor of the land have foreseen the magnitude to which the place was so soon to extend,—for in this respect a considerable improvement is visible in the latest-erected part of the town. The most regularly laid-out streets are near the shore: and one branch-road runs by the edge of the sea-cliffs for about half a mile towards Bonchurch, thus affording the houses an uninterrupted view of the sea. ”

“ As for what Ventnor calls a group consciousness I would assume that he means a communal intelligence such as that shown by the bees and the ants—that in the case of the former Maeterlinck calls the 'Spirit of the Hive.' It is shown in their groupings—just as the geometric arrangement of those groupings shows also clearly their crystalline intelligence. ”

“ Ventnor's ears. The impudence the consummate impudence of it from this fraudulent old ruffian with one foot in bankruptcy and one foot in the grave, if not in the dock.
“Yes,” he said, “it's never too late to learn; and for once you've come up against someone a leetle bit too much for you. ”

“ And after all, the Doctor's objection to a residence in town, is largely compensated for in the case of Ventnor, by the many advantages afforded to invalids, that could be procured only in a populous place: such for instance as regular stage-coaches running to and from Ryde and other places; a good landing-place; bathing-machines; a post-office and reading-rooms; the location of several apothecaries and eminent physicians: tradesmen of almost every description; and the facility of enjoying society in the dullest winter months. ”

“ To say that Ventnor is dull, to American notions, is only to say that it is an English sea-side resort. People live mostly in lodgings, which is the most unsocial way possible of living: there are no reading-rooms, no cafés, no hops, no places of meeting and introduction. There is the rapprochement of proximity on the Esplanade and the bathing beach, where one gets a little of his fellow-creatures in a sort of spiritual endosmose and exosmose. ”

“ Gradually gently it crept up to the place where Vernon lay; and the little ripples fell over him wonderingly, with the low murmur of their musical laughter, and blurred and dimmed the vivid splashes and crimson streaks upon the white stone on which his head had fallen, and washed away some of the purple bells and green sprigs of heather round which his fingers were closed in the grasp of death, and played softly with his fair hair as it rose, and fell, and floated on their undulations like a leaf of golden-colored weed, until they themselves were faintly discolored by his blood. ”

“ He had come, in a way, to be a cliff-dweller himself, and those silent eyes would look down upon him, as if in surprise that after thousands of years a man had invaded the valley. Venters felt sure that he was the only white man who had ever walked under the shadow of the wonderful stone bridge, down into that wonderful valley with its circle of caves and its terraced rings of silver spruce and aspens. ”

“ Venters rode into the trail and up the cañon. Gradually the trees and caves and objects low down turned black, and this blackness moved up the walls till night enfolded the pass, while day still lingered above. The sky darkened; and stars began to show, at first pale and then bright. Sharp notches of the rim-wall, biting like teeth into the blue, were landmarks by which Venters knew where his camping site lay. He had to feel his way through a thicket of slender oaks to a spring where he watered Wrangle and drank himself. ”

“ Venters laughed in cool disdain.
The red leaped to Tull's dark cheek.
"If you don't go it means your ruin," he said, sharply.
"Ruin!" exclaimed Venters, passionately. "Haven't you already ruined me? What do you call ruin? A year ago I was a rider. I had horses and cattle of my own. I had a good name in Cottonwoods. And now when I come into the village to see this woman you set your men on me. You hound me. You trail me as if I were a rustler. I've no more to lose—except my life." ”

“ A wide, white trail wound away down the slope. One keen, sweeping glance told Venters that there was neither man nor horse nor steer within the limit of his vision, unless they were lying down in the sage. Ring loped in the lead and Whitie loped in the rear. Wrangle settled gradually into an easy swinging canter, and Venters's thoughts, now that the rush and flurry of the start were past, and the long miles stretched before him, reverted to a calm reckoning of late singular coincidences. ”

“ Here the valley floor was level, and here opened a narrow chasm, a ragged vent in yellow walls of stone. The trail down the five hundred feet of sheer depth always tested Venters's nerve. It was bad going for even a burro. But Wrangle, as Venters led him, snorted defiance or disgust rather than fear, and, like a hobbled horse on the jump, lifted his ponderous iron-shod fore hoofs and crashed down over the first rough step. Venters warmed to greater admiration of the sorrel ”

“ The starlight failed and the gloom blackened to the darkest hour. “She’ll die at the gray of dawn,” muttered Venters, remembering some old woman’s fancy. The blackness paled to gray, and the gray lightened and day peeped over the eastern rim. Venters listened at the breast of the girl. She still lived. Did he only imagine that her heart beat stronger, ever so slightly, but stronger? He pressed his ear closer to her breast. And he rose with his own pulse quickening.
“If she doesn’t die soon—she’s got a chance—the barest chance to live,” he said. ”

“ Venters determined at once to lead the other horses out through the thicket and turn them loose. The farther they wandered from this cañon the better it would suit him. He easily descried Wrangle through the gloom, but the others were not in sight. Venters whistled low for the dogs, and when they came trotting to him he sent them out to search for the horses, and followed. It soon developed that they were not in the glade nor the thicket. Venters grew cold and rigid at the thought of rustlers having entered his retreat. ”