Mr. Hezekiah Greenfield, of the Reindeer Hotel, was beside himself under the unusual press of business, and his waiters and hostlers were nearly crazy amid the confusion of arrivals and the conflicting claims made all at once upon their attention and services.
The scene around the court-house was even more tumultuous.
The court-house was a plain, oblong, two-story edifice, built of the red stone that abounded in the mountain quarries of that district. It stood in a large yard shaded with many trees and surrounded by a high stone wall.
In the rear end of this yard stood the county prison.
The court-yard was filled with curious people, who were pressing toward the doors of the court-house, trying to effect an entrance into the building, which was already crammed to suffocation.
In the minister's cottage parlor, at the same early hour, were assembled the Rev. Mr. Lyle, honest John Lytton and his shock-headed son, Charley, Joseph Brent, Alden Lytton, and his counsel, Messrs. Berners and Denham.
John Lytton had arrived only that morning. And on meeting his nephew had taken him by both hands, exclaiming:
"You know, Aldy, my boy, as I told you before, I don't believe the first word of all this. 'Cause it's impossible, you know, for any man of our race to do anything unbecoming of a Lytton and a gentleman. And I think a man's family ought to stand by him in a case like this. So I not only came myself, but I fotch Charley, and if I had had another son I would a-fotched him too. I don't know but I'd a fotched your aunt Kitty and the girls, only, as I said to them, a trial of this sort a'n't no proper place for ladies. What do you think yourself?"
"I quite agree with you, Uncle John. And I feel really very deeply touched by the proof of confidence and affection you give me in coming here yourself," said Alden, earnestly, pressing and shaking the honest hands that held his own.
And at that moment Mr. Lyle placed in Mr. Alden Lytton's hands a little note from Emma, saying: