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In the time of Bloody Mary, a Protestant clergyman--George Marsh by name
--was examined before the then proprietor of the Hall, Sir Roger Barton,
I think, and committed to prison for his heretical opinions, and was
ultimately burned at the stake. As his guards were conducting him from
the justice-room, through the stone-paved passage that leads from front
to rear of Smithell's Hall, he stamped his foot upon one of the
flagstones in earnest protestation against the wrong which he was
undergoing. The foot, as some say, left a bloody mark in the stone;
others have it, that the stone yielded like wax under his foot, and that
there has been a shallow cavity ever since. This miraculous footprint is
still extant; and Mrs. ------ showed it to me before her husband took me
round the estate. It is almost at the threshold of the door opening from
the rear of the house, a stone two or three feet square, set among
similar ones, that seem to have been worn by the tread of many
generations. The footprint is a dark brown stain in the smooth gray
surface of the flagstone; and, looking sidelong at it, there is a shallow
cavity perceptible, which Mrs. ------ accounted for as having been worn
by people setting their feet just on this place, so as to tread the very
spot, where the martyr wrought the miracle. The mark is longer than any
mortal foot, as if caused by sliding along the stone, rather than sinking
into it; and it might be supposed to have been made by a pointed shoe,
being blunt at the heel, and decreasing towards the toe.
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