Lord Chief-Justice—Ay, to be sure you do, do not let me take you prevaricating!
Dunne—My Lord, I speak nothing but the truth.
Lord Chief-Justice—Well, I only bid you have a care, truth never wants a subterfuge, it always loves to appear naked, it needs no enamel, nor any covering; but lying and snivelling, and canting, and Hicksing, always appear in masquerade. Come, go on with your evidence.
Dunne then proceeds—he went home, arriving on Sunday, and gave his message to the man he first saw, and on Tuesday morning he, and a 'full fat black man,' and a 'thin black man,' came to his house at seven in the morning. Starting with two of them whom he had not seen before, but identified as Hicks and Nelthorp, at eleven, he took them by way of Deverel, Chilmark and Sutton to Salisbury Plain, where one Barter met them to guide them on, by Chalk, Rochesborne and Fordingbridge. This way he alleged, apparently falsely, was a shorter way than he had taken on Saturday. Near Barton, however, they lost their way, and Dunne was sent down to the village to a man to tell him that one Hicks desired to speak to him. Who the man was, he hesitated to say.
Dunne—His name, my Lord, I cannot rightly tell for the present.
Lord Chief-Justice—Prithee recollect thyself: indeed thou canst tell us if thou wilt.
Dunne—My Lord, I can go to the house again if I were at liberty.
Lord Chief-Justice—I believe it, and so could I; but really neither you nor I can be spared at present; therefore prithee do us the kindness now to tell us his name.
Dunne—My Lord, I think his name was Fane.
Lord Chief-Justice—Thou sayest right, his name was Fane truly, thou seest I know something of the matter.[57]