Isabella Hyslop, spinster, was again called, answered to her name, and took the oath distinctly, and without hesitation, until the official querist came to the usual question, "Now, has any one instructed you what to say, or what you are to answer?" when Tibby replied, with a steady countenance, "Nobody, except my master." The counsel and client stared at one another, while the Court could hardly maintain their gravity of deportment. The querist went on-- "What? Do you say your master instructed you what to say?" "Yes." "And did he give, or promise to give you, any reward for what you were to say?" "Yes." "How much did he give, or promise you, for answering as he directed you?" "He gave me fifteen pound-notes." Here Mr Forret and his counsel, losing all patience at seeing the case take this unexpected turn, interrupted the proceedings, the latter addressing the Judges, with vehemence, to the following purport:-- "My Lords, in my client's name, and in the names of justice and reason, I protest against proceeding with this woman's evidence, it being manifest that she is talking through a total derangement of intellect. At first she is dumb, and cannot answer nor speak a word, and now she is answering in total disregard of all truth and propriety. I appeal to your Lordships if such a farrago as this can be at all inferential or relevant?" "Sir, it was but the other minute," said the junior Judge, "that you announced to us with great importance, that this woman was a person noted for honesty and worth, and one who would not tell a lie for the king's dominions. Why not then hear her evidence to the end? For my own part, I perceive no tokens of discrepancy in it, but rather a scrupulous conscientiousness. Of that, however, we shall be better able to judge when we have heard her out. I conceive that, for the sake of both parties, this woman ought to be strictly examined." "Proceed with the evidence, Mr Wood," said the senior Lord, bowing to his assistant. Tibby was reminded that she was on her great oath, and examined over again; but she adhered strictly to her former answers. "Can you repeat any thing to the Court that he desired you to say?" "Yes; he desired me, over and over again, to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." "And, in order that you should do this, he paid you down fifteen pounds sterling?" "Yes." "This is a very singular transaction: I cannot perceive the meaning of it. You certainly must be sensible that you made an advantageous bargain?" "Yes." "But you depone that he charged you to tell only the truth?" "Yes, he did, and before witnesses, too."