Marshal Herrick Quotes

SARAH GOOD (rising in her rags): Oh, Majesty! Comin’, comin’! Tituba, he’s here, His Majesty’s come!…Oh, is it you, Marshal! I thought sure you be the Devil comin’ for us. Could I have a sip of cider for me goin’- away?
HERRICK (handing her the flask): And where are you off to, Sarah?
TITUBA (as Sarah drinks): We goin’ to Barbados, soon the Devil gits here with the feathers and the wings.
HERRICK: Oh? A happy voyage to you.
SARAH GOOD: A pair of bluebirds wingin’ southerly, the two of us! Oh, it be a grand transformation, Marshal! (She raises her flask to drink again.)

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. When Marshal Herrick arrives to the prison to move some prisoners, a delusional Sarah Good and Tituba mistake him for the Devil. They believe that Satan is coming to fly them to freedom and Tituba’s homeland of Barbados. Sarah uses an animal metaphor to compare the two of them to bluebirds. The good-natured Herrick, somewhat inebriated, gives Sarah a sip of cider from his flask. Miller includes this humorous episode at the beginning of the final act to provide comic relief in what is an intense and deadly serious play. But it shows too how there is no justice for disadvantaged people like the slave Tituba and the beggar Sarah Good, who provide easy targets to frame for witchcraft. Among the first women to be arrested, they have spent the longest time in jail and have now gone crazy and believe they are witches.

HERRICK: It’s the proper morning to fly into Hell.
TITUBA: Oh, it be no Hell in Barbados. Devil, him be pleasure-man in Barbados, him be singin’ and dancin’ in Barbados. It’s you folks – you riles him up ’round here; it be too cold ’round here for that Old Boy. He freeze his soul in Massachusetts, but in Barbados he just and sweet and – (A bellowing cow is heard, and Tituba leaps up and calls to the window): Aye, sir! That’s him, Sarah!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. The "nearly drunk" Marshal Herrick is speaking to Tituba and Sarah Good, who are in prison waiting to be hanged. The women are losing their sanity, thinking that the Devil is coming to take them to Barbados.

SARAH GOOD: I’m here, Majesty! (They hurriedly pick up their rags as Hopkins, a guard, enters.)
HOPKINS: The Deputy Governor’s arrived.
TITUBA (resisting him): No, he comin for me. I goin’ home!
HERRICK (pulling her to the door): That’s not Satan, just a poor old cow with a hatful of milk. Come along now, out with you.
TITUBA (calling to the window): Take me home, Devil! Take me home.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. A cow is heard lowing in the distance as Deputy Governor Danforth arrives to the prison. Prisoners Sarah Good and Tituba mistakingly think it’s the Devil come to whisk them off to Barbados. In this tragically funny scene in the play’s last act, Marshal Herrick is moving the women to another cell. Languishing in jail for months and awaiting execution, they have gone mad at this stage and are beginning to believe they are witches. The scene provides a shocking portrayal of the toll, both mental and physical, that the Salem witch hunts have taken on innocent people, especially the marginalized. It’s Salem “justice” at its ugliest.
Close