BRADFORD.  Silence!  Who else accuses Goody Gurton?

GOODWIFE HUBBARD. 
We’ve seen strange things about, have we not, neighbors?

ALL. 
Aye!  Aye!

GOODWIFE HUBBARD. 
Last night the wind wailed in my chimney.  And when I crossed the fields
at twilight I had a feeling that something followed me.

MERCY HUBBARD (piping up).  And Goodman Folger’s cow hath died since yesternight.  And Goody Gurton was seen going by the pasture.

VIGILANT WINTHROP. 
Aye, there be many signs.  Last night the moon rose red.

JOHN GILES. 
And the week before there were more bats flying than I have ever seen
in Salem.

GOODWIFE BROWN.  And Goodwife Eaton says that all night long in the woods behind her house there is something crying—­she cannot tell whether it be an owl or a child.

REPENTANCE FOLGER. 
Last eve, when the wind was blowing, something flapped past me like a
witch’s cloak.

BRADFORD. 
What have you to say to these things, Goody Gurton?

GOODY GURTON (quite simply).  Why, naught, sir, naught.  I noted myself that last week the moon rose red, and that last night the wind blew shrewdly.

BRADFORD. 
How comes it that you were leaving the streets of Salem, and walking
here in the forest?  ’Twas here in the forest we found you.

GOODY GURTON. 
I came to hunt for some simples...for spearmint and checkerberry and
tansy.

BRADFORD (with deep sternness).  And for wolfbane and hellbore and all other hideous herbs that witches brew in their caldrons.  You stand accused, Goody Gurton.

GOODY GURTON
(bewildered). 
Accused?

BRADFORD. 
Of witchcraft.

THE CROWD
(alternately surging close to her, and falling back). 
A-aaah!  To the pond with her!  To the pond!

JOHN GILES. 
If she sinks she is a witch, if she swims——­

GOODY GURTON. 
Have mercy——­

GOODWIFE HUBBARD
(with a shiver). 
The water in the pond is deep and cold.

WINTHROP.  Here come Caldwell and Blackthorne with a ducking-chair. (Blackthorne and Caldwell carry between them a rude chair fashioned hastily from wood on which the bark still clings.) Well and swiftly fashioned, Blackthorne!

GOODY GURTON. 
Mercy!  Mercy!  Gentle sirs, neighbors, goodwives!  I am no witch!  I swear
it.  I had naught, naught to do with Barbara Williams.

BRADFORD. 
A last chance, Goody.  Call up your evil powers.  Bring back the child,
and it shall be the stocks; but not the pond.  Call!  Call!

GOODY GURTON. 
I have no words.  I cannot bring her back.  Mercy!  Mercy!

BRADFORD
(curtly). 
To the pond!

GOODY GURTON (in a tremulous shriek as Blackthorne and Caldwell begin to bind her in the ducking-chair).  Oh, no, no, no!  I am no witch!  I swear it!  Will no one speak for me—­ will no one——­