"The Testimony of Giles Corey.—Mr. Edward Norris and I were going towards the brickkiln: John Kitchen, going with us, fell a nipping and pinching of us. And, when we came back again, John Kitchen struck up Mr. Edward Norris his heels and mine, and fell upon me, and catched me by the throat, and held me so long till he had almost stopped my breath. And I said unto John Kitchen, 'This is not good jesting.' And John Kitchen replied, 'This is nothing: I do owe you more than this of old: this is not half of that which you shall have afterwards.' After this,[i.206] he went into his house, and he took stinking water and threw upon us, and took me and thrust me out of doors, and I went my ways. And John Kitchen followed me half-way up the lane, or thereabouts. Perceiving him to follow me, I went to go over the rails. He took me again, and threw me down off the rails, and fell a beating of me until I was all bloody. And, Thomas Bishop being present, I desired him to bear witness of what he saw. Upon my words, he let me rise. As soon as I was up, he fell a beating of me again. "Testified on oath before the Court, 26th Feb., 1651. "Henry Bartholomew, _Clerk_." This was indeed an extraordinary outburst of lawless violence, and gives a singular insight of the state of society. Such an occurrence in our day would create astonishment. The organized power of the community to suppress vicious and rude passions was probably never brought to bear with greater rigidness than in our Puritan villages; but it did not fully accomplish its end. Behind and beneath the solemn and formal exterior, there was, after all, perhaps as much irregularity of life as now. The nature of man had not been subdued. The people had their quarrels and fights, and their frolics and merriments, in defiance of the restraints of authority. Violations of local and general laws were not infrequent; and flowed, as ever since, from intemperance, in as large a measure. Kitchen, in this instance, acted as if under the influence of liquor. His behavior, in tripping up the heels and throwing dirty water upon the person of the school[i.207]master of the town, the dignity of whose social position is indicated by the title of "Mr.;" and in giving to Corey such a persistent and gratuitous pommelling,—bears the aspect of a drunken delirium. The latter seems not to have supposed, for some time, that he was in earnest, but to have looked upon his conduct as rough play, which was carried rather too far. Poor Corey was often getting before the town Court as accused or accuser. He was, to the end, the victim of ill-usage, either given or taken. Though not a bad-natured man, he was almost always in trouble. The tenor of his long life was as eccentric and unruly as the manner of his death was strange and horrible.