Excerpt from The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly After his death the building gradually fell into decay. His heirs, not improbably, little caring for a project which had engulfed so large a share of their fortune, made no efforts to arrest the destroying influences of time and climate, and Bishop's Folly - for such was the name given to it by the country-people - soon became a ruin. In some places the roof had fallen in, the doors and windows had all been carried away by the peasants, and in many a cabin or humble shealing in the county around slabs of coloured marble or fragments of costly carving might be met with, over which the skill of a cunning workman had been bestowed for days long. The mansion stood on the side of a mountain which sloped gradually to the sea. The demesne, well wooded, but with young timber, was beautifully varied in surface, one deep glen running, as it were, from the very base of the house to the beach, and showing glimpses, through the trees, of a bright and rapid river tumbling onward to the sea. Seen in its dilapidation and decay, the aspect of the place was dreary and depressing, and led many to wonder how the bishop could ever have selected such a spot; for it was not only placed in the midst of a wild mountain region, but many miles away from anything that could be called a neighbourhood. But the same haughty defiance he gave the world in other things urged him here to Show that he cared little for the judgments which might be passed upon him, or even for the circumstances which would have influenced other men. When it is my pleasure to receive company, I shall have my house full no matter where I live, was his haughty speech, and certainly the whole character of his life went to confirm his words. Some question of disputed title, after the Bishop's death, threw the estate into Chancery, and so it remained till, by the operation of the new law touching encumbered property, it became marketable, and was purchased by a rich London banker, who had declared his intention of coming to live upon it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.