Giles. Send Martha to Salem jail!  Out upon ye!  Why, ye be gone clean mad, magistrates and ministers and all!  Send Martha to jail!  Why, she must home with me this night and get supper!  How think ye I am going to live and keep my house?  Load Martha down with chains in jail!  Martha a witch!  Then, by the Lord, she keeps His company overmuch for one of her trade, for she goes to prayer forty times a day.  Martha a witch!  Think ye Goodwife Martha Corey gallops a broomstick to the hill of a night, with her decent petticoats flapping?  Who says so?  I would I had my musket, and he’d not say so twice to Giles Corey.  And let him say so twice as ’tis, and meet my fist, an he dares.  I be an old man, but I could hold my own in my day, and there be some of me left yet.  Who says so twice to old Giles Corey?  Martha a witch!  Verily she could not stop praying long enough to dance a jig through with the devil.  Martha!  Out upon ye, ye lying devil’s tool of a parson, that seasons murder with prayer!  Out upon ye, ye magistrates! your hands be redder than your fine trappings!  Martha a witch!  Ye yourselves be witches, and serving Satan, and he a-tickling in his sleeve at ye.  Send Martha in chains to Salem jail, ye will, will ye? (Forces his way to Martha, and throws his arm around her.) Be not afraid, good lass, thy man will save thee.  Thou shalt not go to jail!  I say thou shalt not!  I’ll cut my way through a whole king’s army ere thou shalt.  I’ll raise the devil myself ere thou shalt, and set him tooth and claw on the whole brood of them.  I’ll—­(One of the afflicted shrieks. Giles turns upon them.) Why, devil take ye, ye lying hussies, ye have done this!  Ye should be whipped through the town at the tail of a cart, every one of ye.  Ye ill-favored little jades, puling because no man will have ye, and putting each other up to this d—­ mischief for lack of something better.  Out upon ye, ye little—­

Mercy (jumping up and screaming in agony).  Oh, Giles Corey is upon me!  He is afflicting me grievously!  Oh, I will not!  Chain him! chain him! chain him!

Ann. Oh, this is worse than the others!  This is dreadful!  He’s strangling me!  I—­Oh—­your—­worships!  Oh—­help!—­help! [Falls upon the floor.

Afflicted Girls. Chain him! chain him!

Hathorne. Marshal, take Giles Corey into custody and chain him.

[Marshal and Constables advance.  Tableau—­Curtain falls.

Act IV.

The living-room in Giles Corey’s house. Nancy Fox and the child Phoebe Morse sit beside the hearth; each has her apron over her face, weeping.

Phoebe (sobbing).  I—­want my Aunt—­Corey and—­my Uncle Corey.  Why don’t they come?  Oh, deary me!

[Phoebe jumps up and runs to the window.

Nancy. See you anybody coming?