Abby, we’ve got to tell! Witchery’s a hangin’ error, a hangin’ like they done in Boston two years ago! We must tell the truth, Abby! You’ll only be whipped for dancin’, and the other things!
– Arthur Miller
The Crucible, Act 1. After the girls dance in the wood and drink chicken’s blood, the Proctors’ 17-year-old servant Mary Warren fears being hanged as witchcraft rumors swirl around Salem. Confronting Abigail, she says that they should confess to dancing and accept whipping rather than go to the gallows for witchcraft. This shows the brutal and intolerant Puritan justice system in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where dancing and witchcraft were crimes punished with the utmost severity. Mary’s "we must tell the truth" cry foreshadows her confession later in the play that the girls made up stories of seeing the Devil and spirits of other people – she recants that confession when Abby pressures her.