Wesley Corpus

An Account of the Brothers' Steps Source: The Works of John Wesley, Volume 11 (Zondervan) Author: John Wesley --- LAST summer [1780] I received a letter from a friend, wherein were these words:- “I THINK it would be worth your while to take a view of those wonderful marks of the Lord's hatred to duelling, called The Brothers’ Steps. They are in the fields, about a third of a mile northward from Montague-House; and the awful tradition concerning them is, that two brothers quar relled about a worthless woman, and, according to the fashion of those days, fought with sword and pistol. The prints of their feet are about the depth of three inches, and Account of THE BROTHERs’ sTEPs. 499 nothing will vegetate so much as to disfigure them. The number is only eighty-three; but probably some are at present filled up; for I think there were formerly more in the centre, where each unhappy combatant wounded the other to death: And a bank on which the first who fell died, retains the form of his agonizing couch, by the curse of barrenness, while grass flourishes all about it. Mr. George Hall, who was the Librarian of Lincoln’s-Inn, first showed me those steps twenty-eight years ago, whem, I think, they were not quite so deep as now. He remembered them about thirty years, and the man who first showed them him, about thirty more, which goes back to the year 1692; but 1 suppose they originated in King Charles the Second’s reign. My mother well remembered their being ploughed up, and corn sown, to deface them, about fifty years ago: But all was labour in vain; for the prints returned in a while to their pristine form; as probably will those that are now filled up. Indeed I think an account of them in your Magazine would be a pious memorial of their lasting reality. “These hints are only offered as a small token of my good-will to yourself and the work, by “Your son and brother in the gospel, This account appeared to me so very extraordinary, that I knew not what to think of it. I knew Mr. Walsh to be a person of good understanding and real piety; and he testified what he had seen with his own eyes: But still I wanted more witnesses, till, awhile ago, being at Mr.