The fire is always kept up, throughout summer and
winter, and it seemed to me an excellent plan, and rich with cheerful
effects; insuring one comfortable place, and that the most central in the
house, whatever may be the inclemency of the weather. It was a cloudy,
moist, showery day, when I arrived; and this fire gave me the brightest
and most hospitable smile, and took away any shivery feeling by its mere
presence. The servant showed me thence into a low-studded dining-room,
where soon Mrs. ------ made her appearance, and, after some talk, brought
me into the billiard-room, opening from the hall, where Mr. ------ and a
young gentleman were playing billiards, and two ladies looking on. After
the game was finished, Mr. ------ took me round to see the house and
grounds.
The peculiarity of this house is what is called "The Bloody Footstep."
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.
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