So when before the magistrates
For triall he did come,
He would no true confession make,
But was compleatlie dumbe.
"Giles Corey," said the Magistrate,
"What hast thou heare to pleade
To these that now accuse thy soule
Of crimes and horrid deed?"
Giles Corey, he said not a worde,
No single worde spoke he.
"Giles Corey," saith the Magistrate,
"We'll press it out of thee."
They got them then a heavy beam,
They laid it on his breast;
They loaded it with heavy stones,
And hard upon him prest.
"More weight!" now said this wretched man;
"More weight!" again he cried;
And he did no confession make,
But wickedly he dyed.
One of the most assiduous of the prosecutors had been John Hale, minister of the First Church at Beverly. In October the accusers "cried out" against his wife, who was widely known for generous and disinterested virtues. Hale knew the "innocence and piety of his wife, and stood between her and the storm he had helped to raise. The whole community became convinced that the accusers in crying out upon Mrs. Hale had perjured themselves, and from that moment their power was destroyed."
MISTRESS HALE OF BEVERLY
[October, 1692]
The roadside forests here and there were touched with tawny gold;
The days were shortening, and at dusk the sea looked blue and cold;
Through his long fields the minister paced, restless, up and down;
Before, the land-locked harbor lay; behind, the little town.
No careless chant of harvester or fisherman awoke
The silent air; no clanging hoof, no curling weft of smoke,
Where late the blacksmith's anvil rang; all dumb as death,—and why?
Why? echoed back the minister's chilled heart, for sole reply.