Danforth. These will be sufficient. Sit you down, children. (Silently they sit.) Your friend, Mary Warren, has given us a deposition. In which she swears that she never saw familiar spirits, apparitions, nor any manifest of the Devil. She claims as well that none of you have seen these things either. (slight pause) Now, children, this is a court of law. The law, based upon the Bible, and the Bible, writ by Almighty God, forbid the practice of witchcraft, and describe death as the penalty thereof. But likewise, children, the law and Bible damn all bearers of false witness. (slight pause) Now then. It does not escape me that this deposition may be devised to blind us; it may well be that Mary Warren has been conquered by Satan, who sends her here to distract our sacred purpose. If so, her neck will break for it. But if she speak true, I bid you now drop your guile and confess your pretense, for a quick confession will go easier with you. (pause) Abigail Williams, rise. (Abigail slowly rises.) Is there any truth in this?
Abigail. No, sir.
Danforth (thinks, glances at Mary, then back to Abigail). Children, a very auger bit will now be turned into your souls until your honesty is proved. Will either of you change your positions now, or do you force me to hard questioning?
Abigail. I have naught to change, sir. She lies.
Danforth (to Mary). You would still go on with this?
Mary Warren (faintly). Aye, sir.
Danforth (turning to Abigail). A poppet were discovered in Mr. Proctor’s house, stabbed by a needle. Mary Warren claims that you sat beside her in the court when she made it, and that you saw her make it and witnessed how she herself stuck her needle into it for safe-keeping. What say you to that?
Abigail (with a slight note of indignation). It is a lie, sir.
Danforth (after a slight pause). While you worked for Mr. Proctor, did you see poppets in that house?
Abigail. Goody Proctor always kept poppets.
Proctor. Your Honor, my wife never kept no poppets. Mary Warren confesses it was her poppet.
Cheever. Your Excellency.
Danforth. Mr. Cheever.
Cheever. When I spoke with Goody Proctor in that house, she said she never kept no poppets. But she said she did keep poppets when she were a girl.
Proctor. She has not been a girl these fifteen years, Your Honor.
Hathorne. But a poppet will keep fifteen years, will it not?
Proctor. It will keep if it is kept, but Mary Warren swears she never saw no poppets in my house, nor anyone else.
Parris. Why could there not have been poppets hid where no one ever saw them?
Proctor (furious). There might also be a dragon with five legs in my house, but no one has ever seen it.
Parris. We are here, Your Honor, precisely to discover what no one has ever seen.
Proctor. Mr. Danforth, what profit this girl to turn herself about? What may Mary Warren gain but hard questioning and worse?
Danforth. You are charging Abigail Williams with a marvelous cool plot to murder, do you understand that?
Proctor. I do, sir. I believe she means to murder.
Danforth (pointing at Abigail, incredulously). This child would murder your wife?
Identify an example of dramatic irony in the section above and explain its effect on the audience in two to three sentences.