Parris: Do you know this gentleman? Mr. Thomas Putnam. And his good wife Ann.
Hale: Putnam! I had not expected such distinguished company, sir.
Putnam, pleased: It does not seem to help us today, Mr. Hale. We look to you to come to our house and save our child.
Hale: Your child ails too?
Mrs. Putnam: Her soul, her soul seems flown away. She sleeps and yet she walks ...
Putnam: She cannot eat.
Hale: Cannot eat! Thinks on it. Then, to Proctor and Giles Corey: Do you men have afflicted children?
Parris: No, no, these are farmers. John Proctor –
Giles: He don't believe in witches.
Proctor, to Hale: I never spoke on witches one way or the other. Will you come, Giles?
Giles: No – no, John, I think not. Mr. Hale, I hope you'll leave some of it in Salem.
Proctor: I’ve heard you to be a sensible man, Mr. Hale. I hope you’ll leave some of it in Salem.
Proctor goes. Hale stands embarrassed for an instant.
Parris, quickly: Will you look at my daughter, sir? Leads Hale to the bed. She has tried to leap out the window; we discovered her this morning on the highroad, waving her arms as though she’d fly.
Hale, narrowing his eyes: Tries to fly.
Putnam: She cannot bear to hear the Lord’s name, Mr. Hale; that’s a sure sign of witchcraft afloat.
Hale, holding up his hands: No, no. Now let me instruct you. We cannot look to superstition in this. The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone, and I must tell you all that I shall not proceed unless you are prepared to believe me if I should find no bruise of Hell upon her.
Parris: It is agreed, sir – it is agreed – we will abide by your judgement.
Hale: Good then. He goes to bed, looks down at Betty. To Parris: Now, sir, what were your first warnings of this strangeness?
Parris: Why, sir – I discovered her – indicating Abigail – and my niece and ten or twelve other girls, dancing in the forest last night.
Hale, surprised: You permit dancing?
Parris: No, no, it were secret –
Mrs. Putnam, unable to wait: Mr. Parris’s slave has knowledge of conjurin’, sir.
Parris, to Mrs. Putnam: We cannot be sure of that, Goody Ann -
Mrs. Putnam, frightened, very softly: I know it, sir. I sent my child – she should learn from Tituba who murdered her sisters.
Rebecca, horrified: Goody Ann! You sent a child to conjure up the dead?
Mrs. Putnam: Let God blame me, not you, not you, Rebecca! I’ll not have you judging me any more! To Hale: Is it a natural work to lose seven children before they live a day?
Parris: Sssh!
Rebecca, with great pain, turns her face away. There is a pause.
Hale: Seven dead in childbirth.
Mrs. Putnam, softly: Aye. Her voice breaks; she looks up at him. Silence. Hale is impressed. Parris looks to him. He goes to his books, opens one, turns pages, then reads. All wait, avidly.
Parris, hushed: What book is that?
Hale, with a tasty love of intellectual pursuit: Here is the invisible world, caught, defined, and calculated. In these books the Devil stands stripped of all his brute disguises. Have no fear now – I mean to crush him utterly if he has shown his face! He starts for the bed.
Rebecca: Will it hurt the child, sir?
Hale: I cannot tell. If she is truly in the Devil’s grip we may have to rip and tear to get her free.
Rebecca: I think I’ll go, then. I am too old for this. I pray to God for you, sir. She rises.
Parris, with trepidation – and resentment: I hope you do not mean we go to Satan here! Slight pause.
Rebecca: I wish I knew. She goes out; they feel resentful of her note of moral superiority.
Putnam, abruptly: Come, Mr. Hale, let’s get on. Sit you here.
Giles: Mr. Hale, I have always wanted to ask a learned man - what signifies the readin’ of strange books?
Hale: What books?
Giles: I cannot tell; she hides them,
Hale: ho does this?
Giles: Martha, my wife. I have waked at night many a time and found her in a corner, readin’ of a book. Now what do you make of that?
Hale: Why, that’s not necessarily–
Giles: It discomfits me! Last night – mark this – I tried and tried and could not say my prayers. And then she close her book and walks out of the house, and suddenly – mark this – I could pray again!
Old Giles must be spoken for, if only because his fate was to be so remarkable and so different from that of all the others. He was in his early eighties at this time, and was the most comical hero in the history. No man has ever been blamed for so much. If a cow was missed, the first thought was to look for her around Corey’s house; a fire blazing up at night brought sus-picion of arson to his door. He didn’t give a hoot for public opinion, and only in his last years - after he had married Martha - did he bother much with the church. That she stopped his prayer is very probable, but he forgot to say that he’d only recently learned any prayers and it didn’t take much to make him stumble over them. He was a crank and a nuisance, but withal a deeply innocent and brave man. In court once he was asked if it were true that he had been frightened by the strange behavior of a hog and had then said he knew it to be the Devil in an animal’s shape. “What frighted you?” he was asked. He forgot everything but the word “frighted,” and instantly replied, “I do not know that I ever spoke that word in my life".
Hale: Ah! The stoppage of prayer – that is strange. I’ll speak further on that with you.
Giles: I’m not sayin’ she’s touched the Devil, now, but I’d admire to know what books she reads and why she hides them. She’ll not answer me, y’ see.
Hale: Aye, we’ll discuss it. To all: Now mark me, if the Devil is in her you will witness some frightful wonders in this room, so please to keep your wits about you. Mr. Putnam, stand close in case she flies. Now, Betty, dear, will you sit up? Putnam comes in closer, ready handed. Hale sits Betty up, but she hangs limp in his hands.Hmm. He observes her carefully. The others watch breathlessly. Can you hear me? I am John Hale, minister of Beverly, I have come to help you, dear. Do you remember my two little girls in Beverly? She does not stir in his hands.
Parris, in fright: How can it be the Devil? Why would he choose my house to strike? We have all manner of licentious people in the village!
Hale: What victory would the Devil have to win a soul already bad? It is the best the Devil wants, and who is better than the minister?