d
ministers, and give them sight to discover the guilty!

_Parris._ Why do you not confess that you are a witch?

_Martha_ (_with sudden fervor_). I am no witch. There is no such
thing as a witch. Oh, ye worshipful magistrates, ye ministers and
good people of Salem Village, I pray ye hear me speak for a moment's
space. Listen not to this testimony of distracted children, this
raving of a poor lovesick, jealous maid, who should be treated
softly, but not let to do this mischief. Ye, being in your fair wits
and well acquaint with your own knowledge, must know, as I know,
that there be no witches. Wherefore would God let Satan after such
wise into a company of His elect? Hath He not guard over His own
precinct? Can He not keep it from the power of the Adversary as well
as we from the savages? Why keep ye the scouts out in the fields if
the Lord God hath so forsaken us? Call in the scouts! If we believe
in witches, we believe not only great wickedness, but great folly of
the Lord God. Think ye in good faith that I verily stand here with a
black cat on my shoulder and a yellow bird on my head? Why do ye not
see them as well as these maids? I would that ye might if they be
there. Black cat, yellow bird, if ye be upon my shoulder and my
head, as these maids say, I command ye to appear to these
magistrates! Otherwise, if I have signed the book, as these maids
say, I swear unto ye that I will cross out my name, and will serve
none but the God Almighty. Most worshipful magistrates, see ye the
black cat? See ye any yellow bird? Why are ye not afflicted as well
as these maids, when I turn my eyes upon ye? I pray you to consider
that. I am no saint; I wot well that I have but poorly done the will
of the Lord who made me, but I am a gospel woman and keep to the
faith according to my poor measure. Can I be a gospel woman and a
witch too? I have never that I know of done aught of harm whether to
man or beast. I have spared not myself nor minded mine own
infirmities in tasks for them that belonged to me, nor for any
neighbor that had need. I say not this to set myself up, but to
prove to you that I can be no witch, and my daughter can be no
witch. Have I not watched nights without number with the sick? Have
I not washed and dressed new-born babes? Have I not helped to make
the dead ready for burial, and sat by them until the cock crew? Have
I ever held back when there was need of me? But I say not this to
set myself up. Have I not b