JUSTICE: Here's none now, Mother Sawyer, but this gentleman [Sir Arthur Clarington himself], myself, and you. Let us to some mild questions. Have you mild answers? Tell us honestly, … are you a witch or no?

SAWYER: I am none.

JUST: Be not so furious.

SAWY: I am none. None but base curs so bark at me. I am none. Or would I were: if every poor old woman be trod on thus by slaves, reviled, kicked, beaten, as I am daily, she to be revenged had need turn witch.

SIR ARTHUR: And you, to be revenged, have sold your soul to the Devil.

SAWY: Keep thine own from him.

JUST: You are too saucy and too bitter.

SAWY: Saucy? By what commission can he send my soul on the Devil's errand, more than I can his? Is he a landlord of my soul, to thrust it when he list out of doors?

JUST: Know whom you speak to.

SAWY: A man: perhaps no man. Men in gay clothes, whose backs are laden with titles and honors, are within far more crooked than I am and—if I be a witch—more witchlike.

SIR ART: Y'are a base Hell-hound. And now, sir, let me tell you, far and near she's bruited  for a woman that maintains a spirit that sucks her.

SAWY: I defy thee.

SIR ART: Go, go. I can if need be bring a hundred voices e'en here in Edmonton that shall loud proclaim thee for a secret and pernicious witch.

SAWY: Ha, ha!

JUST: Do you laugh? Why laugh you?

SAWY: At my name, the brave name this knight gives me: witch.

JUST: Is the name of “witch” so pleasing to thine ear?

SIR ART: Pray, sir, give way, and let her tongue gallop on.

SAWY: A witch? Who is not?
Hold not that universal name in scorn, then.
What are your painted things in princes' courts,
Upon whose eyelids Lust sits blowing fires
To burn men's souls in sensual hot desires,
Upon whose naked paps a lecher's thought
Acts sin in fouler shapes than can be wrought?

JUST: But those work not as you do.

SAWY: No, but far worse:
These by enchantments can whole lordships change
To trunks of rich attire, turn plows and teams
To Flanders mares and coaches, and huge trains
Of servitors to a French butterfly. 
Have you not seen City-witches who can turn
Their husbands' wares, whole standing shops of wares,
To sumptuous tables, gardens of stol'n sin,
In one year wasting what scarce twenty win?
Are not these witches?

JUST: Yes, yes, but the law
Casts not an eye on these.

SAWY: Why then on me,
Or any lean old beldame?  Reverence once
Had wont to wait on age. Now an old woman,
Ill-favored grown with years, if she be poor,
Must be called “bawd” or “witch.” Such so abused
Are the coarse witches: t'other are the fine,
Spun for the Devil's own wearing.

SIR ART: And so is thine.

SAWY: She on whose tongue a whirlwind sits to blow
A man out of himself, from his soft pillow
To lean his head on rocks and fighting waves,
Is not that scold a witch? The man of law
Whose honeyed hopes the credulous client draws
(As bees by tinkling basins) to swarm to him
From his own hive to work the wax in his—
He is no witch, not he.

SIR ART: But these men-witches
Are not in trading with Hell's merchandise,
Like such as you are, that for a word, a look,
Denial of a coal of fire, kill men,
Children, and cattle.

SAWY: Tell them, sir, that do so:
Am I accused for such a one?

SIR ART: Yes, 'twill be sworn.

SAWY: Dare any swear I ever tempted maiden
With golden hooks flung at her chastity
To come and lose her honor? And being lost
To pay not a denier for't? Some slaves have done it.
Men-witches can, without the fangs of law
Drawing once one drop of blood, put counterfeit pieces
Away for true gold.