A rapid drive of twenty minutes' duration brought them to the court-house.
The Rev. Mr. Lyle alighted first, and called a constable to clear the way for the party to pass into the court-room.
The accused, Alden Lytton, was accommodated with a chair in front of the bench, and near him sat his relatives, John and Charles Lytton, his friends Mr. Lyle and Mr. Brent, and his counsel, Messrs. Berners and Denham.
Judge Burlington sat upon the bench to try the case.
After the tedious preliminaries were over the accused was arraigned with the usual formula, and—not without some natural scorn and indignation, for he was still too youthful to have learned much self-control—answered:
As if he would have added, "You know that quite as well as I myself and everybody else does."