- she maun on nae account be at large. - Mr.
Novit, suldna Jeanie Deans be enclosed?«
    Novit answered in the affirmative, and offered to conduct Jeanie to the
apartment, where, according to the scrupulous practice of the Scottish Court,
the witnesses remain in readiness to be called into Court to give evidence; and
separated, at the same time, from all who might influence their testimony, or
give them information concerning that which was passing upon the trial.
    »Is this necessary?« said Jeanie, still reluctant to quit her father's hand.
    »A matter of absolute needcessity,« said Saddletree, »wha ever heard of
witnesses no being enclosed?«
    »It is really a matter of necessity,« said the younger counsellor, retained
for her sister; and Jeanie reluctantly followed the macer of the Court to the
place appointed.
    »This, Mr. Deans,« said Saddletree, »is ca'd sequestering a witness; but
it's clean different (whilk maybe ye wadna fund out o' yoursell) frae
sequestering ane's estate or effects, as in cases of bankruptcy. I hae aften
been sequestered as a witness, for the Sheriff is in the use whiles to cry me in
to witness the declarations at precognitions, and so is Mr. Sharpitlaw; but I
was ne'er like to be sequestered o' land and gudes but ance, and that was lang
syne, afore I was married. But whisht, whisht! here's the Court coming.«
    As he spoke, the five Lords of Justiciary, in their long robes of scarlet,
faced with white, and preceded by their mace-bearer, entered with the usual
formalities, and took their places upon the bench of judgment.
    The audience rose to receive them; and the bustle occasioned by their
entrance was hardly composed, when a great noise and confusion of persons
struggling, and forcibly endeavouring to enter at the doors of the Court-room,
and of the galleries, announced that the prisoner was about to be placed at the
bar. This tumult takes place when the doors, at first only opened to those
either having right to be present, or to the better and more qualified ranks,
are at length laid open to all whose curiosity induces them to be present on the
occasion. With inflamed countenances and dishevelled dresses, struggling with,
and sometimes tumbling over each other, in rushed the rude multitude, while a
few soldiers, forming, as it were, the centre of the tide, could scarce, with
all their efforts, clear a passage