COREY. 
                     I will not plead. 
If I deny, I am condemned already,
In courts where ghosts appear as witnesses,
And swear men’s lives away.  If I confess,
Then I confess a lie, to buy a life
Which is not life, but only death in life. 
I will not bear false witness against any,
Not even against myself, whom I count least.

GARDNER (aside). 
Ah, what a noble character is this!

COREY. 
I pray you, do not urge me to do that
You would not do yourself.  I have already
The bitter taste of death upon my lips;
I feel the pressure of the heavy weight
That will crush out my life within this hour;
But if a word could save me, and that word
Were not the Truth; nay, if it did but swerve
A hair’s-breadth from the Truth, I would not say it!

GARDNER (aside). 
How mean I seem beside a man like this!

COREY. 
As for my wife, my Martha and my Martyr,—­
Whose virtues, like the stars, unseen by day,
Though numberless, do but await the dark
To manifest themselves unto all eyes,—­
She who first won me from my evil ways,
And taught me how to live by her example,
By her example teaches me to die,
And leads me onward to the better life!

SHERIFF (without). 
Giles Corey!  Come!  The hour has struck!

COREY. 
                          I come! 
Here is my body; ye may torture it,
But the immortal soul ye cannot crush!
                              [Exeunt.

SCENE III—­ A street in the Village.  Enter GLOYD and others.

GLOYD. 
Quick, or we shall be late!

A MAN. 
                 That’s not the way. 
Come here; come up this lane.

GLOYD. 
                        I wonder now
If the old man will die, and will not speak? 
He’s obstinate enough and tough enough
For anything on earth.

A bell tolls.

Hark!  What is that?

A MAN. 
The passing bell.  He’s dead!

GLOYD. 
                       We are too late.
                      [Exeunt in haste.

SCENE IV. —­ A field near the graveyard, GILES COREY lying dead, with a great stone on his breast.  The Sheriff at his head, RICHARD GARDNER at his feet.  A crowd behind.  The bell tolling.  Enter HATHORNE and MATHER.

HATHORNE. 
This is the Potter’s Field.  Behold the fate
Of those who deal in Witchcrafts, and, when questioned,
Refuse to plead their guilt or innocence,
And stubbornly drag death upon themselves.

MATHER. 
O sight most horrible!  In a land like this,
Spangled with Churches Evangelical,
Inwrapped in our salvations, must we seek
In mouldering statute-books of English Courts
Some old forgotten Law, to do such deeds? 
Those who lie buried in the Potter’s Field
Will rise again, as surely as ourselves
That sleep in honored graves with epitaphs;
And this poor man, whom we have made a victim,
Hereafter will be counted as a martyr!