broke the fences down.
You know they were bewitched.
COREY.
Ah, my poor cattle!
The Evil Eye was on them; that is true.
Day of disaster! Most unlucky day!
Why did I leave my ploughing and my reaping
To plough and reap this Sodom and Gomorrah?
Oh, I could drown myself for sheer vexation!
[Exit.
GLOYD.
He's going for his cattle. He won't find them.
By this time they have drifted out to sea.
They will not break his fences any more,
Though they may break his heart. And what care I?
[Exit.
SCENE III. -- COREY's kitchen. A table with supper. MARTHA
knitting.
MARTHA.
He's come at last. I hear him in the passage.
Something has gone amiss with him today;
I know it by his step, and by the sound
The door made as he shut it. He is angry.
Enter COREY with his riding-whip. As he speaks he takes off his
hat and gloves and throws them down violently.
COREY.
I say if Satan ever entered man
He's in John Proctor!
MARTHA.
Giles, what is the matter?
You frighten me.
COREY.
I say if any man
Can have a Devil in him, then that man
Is Proctor,--is John Proctor, and no other!
MARTHA.
Why, what has he been doing?
COREY.
Everything!
What do you think I heard there in the village?
MARTHA.
I'm sure I cannot guess. What did you hear?
COREY.
He says I burned his house!
MARTHA.
Does he say that?
COREY.
He says I burned his house. I was in bed
And fast asleep that night; and I can prove it.
MARTHA.
If he says that, I think the Father of Lies
Is surely in the man.
COREY.
He does say that
And that I did it to wreak vengeance on him
For taking sides against me in the quarrel
I had with that John Gloyd about his wages.
And God knows that I never bore him malice
For that, as I have told him twenty times
MARTHA.
It is John Gloyd has stirred him up to this.
I do not like that Gloyd. I think him crafty,
Not to be trusted, sullen and untruthful.
Come, have your supper. You are tired and hungry.
COREY.
I'm angry, and not hungry.
MARTHA.
Do eat something.
You'll be the better for it.
COREY (sitting down).
I'm not hungry.
MARTHA.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
COREY.
It has gone down upon it, and will rise
To-morrow, and go down again up
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