'In the same street—I forget its name.'
'Not at the Black Jack, St. Giles's?'
He was pressed upon this point, but nothing could be got out of him. He stuck to the point—he had forgotten the name of the street, and he knew nothing of the Black Jack.
So he stood down. The Captain was called by the name he gave himself—Ferdinando Fenwick. He said he had never been known by any other name, that he had no knowledge of the name of Tom Kestever. He had never heard that name. Nor did he know of any occasion on which the said Tom Kestever had been ducked for a pickpocket: flogged for a rogue: imprisoned and tried on a capital charge for cattle lifting. Oh! Jenny, the case was well got up, truly. He, too, had never heard of the Black Jack, and stoutly stood it out that he was a gentleman of Cumberland. Asked what village or town of Cumberland, he named Whitehaven as the place in which he was born and had his property—to wit, five farms contiguous to the town and two or three messuages in the town.
When this evidence was concluded a juryman rose and asked permission of the Court to put a question to the witness, which was granted him.
'Those farms,' he said, 'are contiguous to Whitehaven? Yes, and you were born in that town? What was your father by occupation?'
'He was a draper.'
'My lord,' said the Juryman, 'I am myself a native of Whitehaven. I am the son of the only draper in the town. I am apparently about the same age as the witness. I have never seen him in the town. There is no reputable tradesman of that name in the town, or anywhere near it. There are gentlefolk of the name, but in Northumberland.'
'I wish, Sir,' said the Counsel, 'that I had you in the box.'
'The statement of a Juryman is not evidence,' the Prosecuting Counsel interposed.