As has been intimated, Corey was in bad repute. Either he was a lawless man, or much misunderstood. I am inclined to the latter opinion. He belonged to that class of persons, instances of which we occasionally meet, who care little about the opinions or the talk of others. On one occasion, he was going into town with a cartload of wood. He met Anthony Needham, in company with John Procter whose house[i.185] he had just passed. Procter accosted him thus: "How now, Giles, wilt thou never leave thy old trade? Thou hast got some of my wood here upon thy cart." Corey answered, "True, I did take two or three sticks to lay behind the cart to ease the oxen, because they bore too hard." This shows the free way in which Procter bantered with Corey, and the slight account the latter made of it. But the thing before long got to be too serious to be trifled with. It became the fashion to charge all sorts of offences against Corey; and, whatever any one lost or mislaid, he was considered as having abstracted it. The gossip against him was quite unrestrained, and created a bitter and angry feeling in the neighborhood. In the winter of 1676, a man named Goodell, who had been working on Corey's farm, was carried home to his friends by Corey's wife, in a feeble state of health, and died soon after. It was whispered about, and before long openly asserted, that he had come to his death in consequence of having been violently beaten by Corey, who was accordingly arrested and brought to trial for killing the man. There was a great excitement against him. He probably had punished the man severely for some alleged misconduct; and it was charged that the castigation had been so unmerciful and excessive as to have broken down his constitution and caused his death. There was conflicting evidence going to show that the man had been beaten, for some misconduct, after he had returned to his family. It was a circumstance in favor of Corey, that his wife[i.186] had taken the invalid to his home; and there was no evidence of any ill feeling between her and the sick man during a stop they made at Procter's house on their way. The death, too, it was supposed by some, might have resulted from ordinary disease, and not from whipping, either at Corey's or at home. The result was, that, notwithstanding the prejudice against Corey, he was discharged on paying a fine; showing that the Court did not consider it a very serious offence. We shall hear of this affair again.