A voice is heard calling.
VOICE.
Ho! Corey, Corey! COREY.
What is that?
I surely Heard some one calling me by name! VOICE.
Giles Corey! Enter a boy, running, and out of breath.
BOY.
Is Master Corey here?
COREY.
Yes, here I am.
BOY.
O Master Corey! COREY.
Well?
BOY.
Your wife--your wife-- COREY.
What's happened to my wife?
BOY.
She's sent to prison! COREY.
The dream! the dream! O God, be merciful! BOY.
She sent me here to tell you.
COREY (putting on his jacket).
Where's my horse?
Don't stand there staring, fellows.
Where's my horse?
[Exit COREY.
GLOYD.
Under the trees there.

Run, old man, run, run! You've got some one to wrestle with you now Who'll trip your heels up, with your Cornish hug.
If there's a Devil, he has got you now.
Ah, there he goes! His horse is snorting fire! ONE OF THE MEN.
John Gloyd, don't talk so! It's a shame to talk so! He's a good master, though you quarrel with him.
GLOYD.
If hard work and low wages make good masters, Then he is one.

But I think otherwise.
Come, let us have our dinner and be merry, And talk about the old man and the Witches.
I know some stories that will make you laugh.
They sit down on the grass, and eat.
Now there are Goody Cloyse and Goody Good, Who have not got a decent tooth between them, And yet these children--the Afflicted Children-- Say that they bite them, and show marks of teeth Upon their arms! ONE OF THE MEN.
That makes the wonder greater.
That's Witchcraft.

Why, if they had teeth like yours, 'T would be no wonder if the girls were bitten! GLOYD.
And then those ghosts that come out of their graves And cry, "You murdered us! you murdered us!" ONE OF THE MEN.
And all those Apparitions that stick pins Into the flesh of the Afflicted Children! GLOYD.
Oh those Afflicted Children! They know well Where the pins come from.

I can tell you that.
And there's old Corey, he has got a horseshoe Nailed on his doorstep to keep off the Witches, And all the same his wife has gone to prison.
ONE OF THE MEN.
Oh, she's no Witch.