Spare me! You forget nothin’ and forgive nothin’. Learn charity, woman. I have gone tiptoe in this house all seven monthsince she is gone. I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches round your heart.
I cannot speak but I am doubted, every moment judged for lies, as though I come into a court when I come into this house!
No more! I should have roared you down when first you told me your suspicion.
now she would justify herself:John. I am only—
Now, Martha Corey, there is abundant evidence in our hands to show that you have given yourself to the reading of fortunes. Do you deny it?
How do you know, then, that you are not a witch?
Why do you hurt these children?
l do not hurt them. I scorn it!
I am innocent to a witch. I know not what a witch is.
If I were, I would know it.
He looks at her incredulously:When were he hanged?
Then how does he die?
“More weight.”
Press?
Aye. It were a fearsome man, Giles Corey.
Giles is dead.
quietly, factuallyHe were not hanged. He would not answer aye or nay to his indictment; for if he denied the chargethey’d hang him surely, and auction out his property. So he stand mute, and died Christian under the law.
Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. With a tender smile for the old man: They say he give them but two words. “More weight,” he says. And died.
And so his sons will have his farm.It is the law, for he could not be condemned a wizard without he answer the indictment, aye or nay.