In every other respect it resembled
a large town-house, which, like a fat burgess,
had taken a walk to the country on a holiday,
and climbed to the top of an eminence to look
around it. The bright red colour of the freestone,
the size of the building, the formality of its shape,
and awkwardness of its position, harmonized as
ill with the sweeping Clyde in front, and the
bubbling brook which danced down on the right,
as the fat civic form, with bushy wig, gold-beaded
cane, maroon-coloured coat, and mottled silk stockings,
would have accorded with tile wild and magnificient
scenery of Corehouse Linn.
I went up to the house. It was in that state of
desertion which is perhaps the most unpleasant to
look on, for the place was going to decay, without
having been inhabited. There were about the
mansion, though deserted, none of the slow mouldering
touches of time, which communicate to buildings,
as to the human frame, a sort of reverence,
while depriving them of beauty and of strength.
The disconcerted schemes of the Laird of Castle-Treddles,
had resembled fruit that becomes decayed
without ever having ripened. Some windows
broken, others patched, others blocked up
with deals, gave a disconsolate air to all around,
and seemed to say, ``There Vanity had purposed
to fix her seat, but was anticipated by Poverty.
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