John and Di looked back.
High overhead Overleigh hung in mid air in a thin veil of mist, a castle built in light. Every window and archer's loophole, from battlement to basement, the long lines of mullioned lattice of the picture-gallery and the garret gallery above, throbbed with light. The dining-hall gleamed through its double glass. The rose window of the chapel was a rose of fire.
"They have forgotten my window," said John; and Di saw that the lowest portion of the western tower was dark. Her own oriel window, and Archie's next it, shone bravely.
Mitty was watching from the nursery window. In the fierce wavering light she could see John, conspicuous in his Russian coat and peaked Russian cap, advance across the ice, escorted by torches, to the ever-increasing multitude upon the further bank. The enthusiastic cheering of the crowd when it caught sight of him came up to her, as she sat with a cheek pressed against the lattice, and she wept for joy.
Di's heart quickened as she heard it. Her pride, which had at first steeled her against John, had deserted to his side. It centred in him now. She was proud of him. Lord Hemsworth, on his knees before her, fastening her skates, asked her some question relating to a strap, and, looking up as she did not answer, marvelled at the splendid colour in her cheek, and the flash in the eyes looking beyond him over his head. At a signal from John the band began to play, and some few among the crowd to dance on the sanded portion of the ice set apart for them; but far the greater number gathered in dense masses to watch the "musical ride" on skates which the house-party at Overleigh had been practising the previous day, which John led with Lady Alice, circling in and out round groups of torches, and ending with a grand chain, in which Mr. Lumley and Miss Crupps collapsed together, to the delight of the spectators and of Mr. Lumley himself, who said he should tell his mamma.
And still the crowd increased.
As John was watching the hockey-players contorted like prawns, wheeling fast and furious between their flaming goals, which dripped liquid fire on to the ice, the local policeman came up to him.
"There's over two thousand people here to-night, sir," he said.
"The more the better," said John.
"Yes, sir, and I've been about among 'em, me and Jones, and there's a sight of people here, sir, as are no tenants of yours, and roughish characters some of 'em."