What answer do you make to this, Giles Corey?
MARY.
See there! See there!
HATHORNE.
What is it? I see nothing.
MARY.
Look! Look! It is the ghost of Robert Goodell, Whom fifteen years ago this man did murder By stamping on his body! In his shroud He comes here to bear witness to the crime!
The crowd shrinks back from COREY in horror.
HATHORNE.
Ghosts of the dead and voices of the living Bear witness to your guilt, and you must die!
It might have been an easier death.Your doom Will be on your own head, and not on ours.
Twice more will you be questioned of these things;Twice more have room to plead or to confess.
If you are contumacious to the Court, And if, when questioned, you refuse to answer, Then by the Statute you will be condemned To the peine forte et dure! To have your body Pressed by great weights until you shall be dead!
And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!
ACT V.
SCENE I.-- COREy's farm as in Act II., Scene I.Enter RICHARDGARDNER, looking round him.
GARDNER.
Here stands the house as I remember it.
The four tall poplar-trees before the door;The house, the barn, the orchard, and the well, With its moss-covered bucket and its trough;The garden, with its hedge of currant-bushes;The woods, the harvest-fields; and, far beyond, The pleasant landscape stretching to the sea.
But everything is silent and deserted!
No bleat of flocks, no bellowing of herds, No sound of flails, that should be beating now;Nor man nor beast astir.What can this mean?
Knocks at the door.
What ho! Giles Corey! Hillo-ho! Giles Corey!--No answer but the echo from the barn, And the ill-omened cawing of the crow, That yonder wings his flight across the fields, As if he scented carrion in the air.
Enter TITUBA with a basket.
What woman's this, that, like an apparition, Haunts this deserted homestead in broad day?
Woman, who are you?
TITUBA.
I'm Tituba.
I am John Indian's wife.I am a Witch.
GARDNER.
What are you doing here?
TITUBA.
I am gathering herbs,--
Cinquefoil, and saxifrage, and pennyroyal.
GARDNER (looking at the herbs).
This is not cinquefoil, it is deadly nightshade!
This is not saxifrage, but hellebore!
This is not pennyroyal, it is henbane!
Do you come here to poison these good people?
TITUBA.
I get these for the Doctor in the Village.
Beware of Tituba.I pinch the children;
Make little poppets and stick pins in them, And then the children cry out they are pricked.
The Black Dog came to me and said, "Serve me!"I was afraid.He made me hurt the children.
GARDNER.
Poor soul! She's crazed, with all these Devil's doings.
TITUBA.
Will you, sir, sign the book?
GARDNER.
No, I'll not sign it.
Where is Giles Corey? Do you know Giles Corey!
TITUBA.
He's safe enough.He's down there in the prison.
GARDNER.
Corey in prison? What is he accused of?
TITURA.
Giles Corey and Martha Corey are in prison Down there in Salem Village.Both are witches.
She came to me and whispered, "Kill the children!"Both signed the Book!
GARDNER.
Begone, you imp of darkness!
You Devil's dam!
TITUBA.
Beware of Tituba!
[Exit.
GARDNER.
How often out at sea on stormy nights, When the waves thundered round me, and the wind Bellowed, and beat the canvas, and my ship Clove through the solid darkness, like a wedge, I've thought of him upon his pleasant farm, Living in quiet with his thrifty housewife, And envied him, and wished his fate were mine!
And now I find him shipwrecked utterly, Drifting upon this sea of sorceries, And lost, perhaps, beyond all aid of man!
[Exit.
SCENE II..-- The prison.GILES COREY at a table on which are some papers.
COREY.
Now I have done with earth and all its cares;I give my worldly goods to my dear children;My body I bequeath to my tormentors, And my immortal soul to Him who made it.
O God! who in thy wisdom dost afflict me With an affliction greater than most men Have ever yet endured or shall endure, Suffer me not in this last bitter hour For any pains of death to fall from Thee!
MARTHA is heard singing.
Arise, O righteous Lord!
And disappoint my foes;
They are but thine avenging sword, Whose wounds are swift to close.
COREY.
Hark, hark! it is her voice! She is not dead!
She lives! I am not utterly forsaken!
MARTHA, singing.
By thine abounding grace, And mercies multiplied, I shall awake, and see thy face;I shall be satisfied.
COREY hides his face in his hands.Enter the JAILER, followed by RICHARD GARDNER.
JAILER.
Here's a seafaring man, one Richard Gardner, A friend of yours, who asks to speak with you.
COREY rises.They embrace.
COREY.
I'm glad to see you, ay, right glad to see you.
GARDNER.
And I am most sorely grieved to see you thus.
COREY.
Of all the friends I had in happier days, You are the first, ay, and the only one, That comes to seek me out in my disgrace!
And you but come in time to say farewell, They've dug my grave already in the field.
I thank you.There is something in your presence, I know not what it is, that gives me strength.
Perhaps it is the bearing of a man Familiar with all dangers of the deep, Familiar with the cries of drowning men, With fire, and wreck, and foundering ships at sea!
GARDNER.
Ah, I have never known a wreck like yours!
Would I could save you!
COREY.
Do not speak of that.
It is too late.I am resolved to die.
GARDNER.
Why would you die who have so much to live for?--Your daughters, and--
COREY.
You cannot say the word.
My daughters have gone from me.They are married;They have their homes, their thoughts, apart from me;I will not say their hearts,--that were too cruel.
What would you have me do?
GARDNER.
Confess and live.
COREY.
That's what they said who came here yesterday To lay a heavy weight upon my conscience By telling me that I was driven forth As an unworthy member of their church.
GARDNER.
It is an awful death.
COREY.
'T is but to drown, And have the weight of all the seas upon you.
GARDNER.
Say something; say enough to fend off death Till this tornado of fanaticism Blows itself out.Let me come in between you And your severer self, with my plain sense;Do not be obstinate.
COREY.
I will not plead.