own. He willed his body to be coffined in lead, and to be laid but 2 foot deep in the earth, in the porch of Godshill Church, as unwilling that too much earth should hinder him from rising at the resurrection; where we will leave him, to speak of Peter, the second brother, and son of Richard the Bandit.
This Peter had left him by his father a little land at St Helens (which how it might be purchased in his own name, being an alien, I leave) worth per annum £5. Richard the elder brother being willing to cheat his brother Peter of the land, was an importunate suitor to buy it of him; the other, as crafty, permitted him to feed him with money, and having had half or better of the worth of it, was drawn (as he made himself very unwilling) to sign a deed of sale thereof to his brother; but he being at that time under age; the first act he did when he came of age was to cheat the cheater, and nullify that deed by non-age. The enmity then between the two brothers was great; they vilified one another, and discovered each other’s knavery to the view of the whole Island. I cannot omit one in silence, being so notorious. Richard Garde had good store of monies, and durst not trust any man with it, no not his own house, but hid it in a pot underground in the field, where one Smyth, his neighbour, mistrusting some such matter, observed him more narrowly, and by watching him found an opportunity to gain the hidden pot. The other when he missed it, esteeming it little less than his God, had well-near hanged himself, but that he had some confidence by the devil’s means to recover it, whereupon the brothers, now friends, consult of the means—Peter as the more active man undertakes it, goes to a witch near Kingwood, or somewhere, and brought home certain hope of the short return of the monies; whereupon this Smyth, the Saturday following, was taken on Hazely Hill on his return from Newport, and there in a great storm was beaten, haled, whipped, misused, and almost killed (had not some the next morning found him by chance) not knowing or seeing who did act it, but affirmed it was the devil; and being long ill after, could not be quiet in conscience till he had brought home the pot of silver again to Richard Garde’s house to Binstead, according to the true relation formerly made to Peter by the witch. Peter, he got still lands and livings, whether by right or wrong I suppose he little respected; he was, and is, one of the slyest, craftiest knaves that I know; wit and judgment in matters of law he hath enough both to serve his own turn and to cozen his neighbours; a man worse spoken of I never knew.
A more honourable name was the Worsleys, here commemorated, long one of the chief families in the Island, that had its principal seat at Appuldurcombe on the high downs above Godshill. Its most notable member was Sir Richard Worsley, a cultured Georgian squire, who wrote the history of the Island in quarto, and on his travels made a celebrated art collection to adorn the stately classical mansion which he completed, replacing what had been a Benedictine Abbey. By marriage, the house and its treasures passed to the Earls of Yarborough, who, half a century ago left the Island, carrying away the art collection to be mainly dispersed.
The Lord Yarborough of early Victorian times was a “character,” doughty commodore of the R.Y.S., who tried to play Canute against the advance of railways, a prejudice then shared by high and low, as we learn in Herbert Spencer’s autobiography. His arbitrary lordship had his lands protected against this radical innovation by a guard charged to take into custody anybody with a theodolite, or who looked in the least like a railway engineer. Upon one occasion, a man newly appointed to the post, meeting his master in a secluded part of the estate, at once collared him, an incident to be paralleled by Mr John Mytton’s famous fight, in the disguise of a sweep, with his own keeper.
The mansion, whose name should be strongly accented on the last syllable, stands in a combe, well displayed against its background of dark wood. Since it passed to “overners,” it has been turned into an hotel, then into a school; and a few years ago was acquired by a community of Benedictine monks exiled from France, thus coming back to its original owners. As already mentioned, this Order has since acquired Quarr Abbey, and are spreading their establishments so fast over the Island, that sound Protestants dread to see given up to cloisters all of it that is not dedicated to golf.
For laymen and strangers in general the most interesting spot of this demesne is the Worsley obelisk on the highest point of the Downs, raised by Sir Richard Worsley to a height of 70 feet, but in 1831 struck by lightning that shattered its huge blocks of granite into wild confusion. From this half-ruined landmark the most extensive view in the Island displays its whole length and breadth, from the chalk cliffs of Culver to those about the Needles.
The railway, whose whistle might make that prejudiced Lord Yarborough turn in his grave, of course keeps clear of far prospects, taking a break in the Downs to thread its way through by Whitwell, which has a remarkable restored church, originally composed of two chapels, one belonging to Gatcombe, some miles north-west, once seat of another branch of the Worsley family, and having an ancient church of its own. Thus the line drops down into the rich greenery of the Undercliff, at St Lawrence turning eastward above the shore, to reach Ventnor beside Steephill Castle.