“It will have blood; they say blood will have blood;
    Stones have been known to move and trees to speak,
    Auguries and understood relations have
    By magot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
    The secret’st man of blood.”

Shakespeare here, in all probability, alludes to some story in which the stones covering the corpse of a murdered man were said to have moved of themselves, and so revealed the secret.  In the same way, it was said that where blood had been shed, the marks could not be obliterated, but would continually reappear until justice for the crime had been obtained.  On one occasion, Nathaniel Hawthorne enjoyed the hospitality of Smithells Hall, Lancashire, and was so impressed with the well-known legend of “The Bloody Footstep” that he, in three separate instances, founded fictions upon it.  In his romance of “Septimius” he gives this graphic account of what he saw:  “On the threshold of one of the doors of Smithells Hall there is a bloody footstep impressed into the doorstep, and ruddy as if the bloody foot had just trodden there, and it is averred that on a certain night of the year, and at a certain hour of the night, if you go and look at the doorstep, you will see the mark wet with fresh blood.  Some have pretended to say that this is but dew, but can dew redden a cambric handkerchief?  And this is what the bloody footstep will surely do when the appointed night and hour come round.”  A local tradition says that the stone bearing the imprint of the mysterious footprint was once removed and cast into a neighbouring wood, but in a short time it had to be restored to its original position owing to the alarming noises which troubled the neighbourhood.  This strange footprint is traditionally said to have been caused by George Marsh, the martyr, stamping his foot to confirm his testimony, and has been ever since shewn as the miraculous memorial of the holy man.  The story is that “being provoked by the taunts and persecutions of his examiner, he stamped with his foot upon a stone, and, looking up to heaven, appealed to God for the justice of his cause, and prayed that there might remain in that place a constant memorial of the wickedness and injustice of his enemies.”  It is also stated that in 1732 a guest sleeping alone in the Green Chamber at Smithells Hall saw an apparition, in the dress of a minister with bands, and a book in his hand.  The ghost of Marsh, for so it was pronounced to be, disappeared through the doorway, and on the owner of Smithells hearing the story, he directed that divine service—­long discontinued—­should be resumed at the hall chapel every Sunday.[26]