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. The
blood-stained version of the story is more consistent with the appearance
of the mark than the imprint would be; for if the martyr's blood oozed
out through his shoe and stocking, it might have made his foot slide
along the stone, and thus have lengthened the shape. Of course it is all
a humbug,--a darker vein cropping up through the gray flagstone; but, it
is probably a fact, and, for aught I know, may be found in Fox's Book of
Martyrs, that George Marsh underwent an examination in this house [There
is a full and pathetic account of the examination and martyrdom of George
Marsh in the eleventh section of Fox's Book of Martyrs, as I have just
found (June 9, 1867).
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