“I daresay!” laughed the boy.  “Please let me alone, all of you.  I don’t want attention drawn to me.”

But the slight commotion had attracted Captain Monk’s notice.  He saw his son.

“What’s that?—­Hubert!  What brings you there now, you young pirate?  I ordered you to go out with the cloth.”

“I am not doing any harm, papa,” said the boy, turning his fair and beautiful face towards his father.

Captain Monk pointed his stern finger at the door; a mandate which Hubert dared not disobey, and he went out.

The company sat on, an interminable period of time it seemed to the Vicar.  He glanced stealthily at his watch.  Eleven o’clock.

“Thinking of going, Parson?” said Mr. Threpp.  “I’ll go with you.  My head’s not one of the strongest, and I’ve had about as much as I ought to carry.”

They rose quietly, not to disturb the table; intending to steal away, if possible, without being observed.  Unluckily, Captain Monk chanced to be looking that way.

“Halloa! who’s turning sneak?—­Not you, surely, Parson!—­” in a meaningly contemptuous tone.  “And you, Threpp, of all men!  Sit down again, both of you, if you don’t want to quarrel with me.  Odds fish! has my dining-room got sharks in it, that you’d run away?  Winter, just lock the door, will you; you are close to it; and pass up the key to me.”

Mr. Winter, a jovial old man and the largest tenant on the estate, rose to do the Captain’s behest, and sent up the key.

“Nobody quits my room,” said the host, as he took it, “until we have seen the old year out and the new one in.  What else do you come for—­eh, gentlemen?”

The revelry went on.  The decanters circulated more quickly, the glasses clicked, the songs became louder, the Captain’s sea stories broader.  Mr. West perforce made the best of the situation, certain words of Holy Writ running through his memory: 

“Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright!”

Well, more than well, for Captain Monk, that he had not looked upon the red wine that night!

In the midst of all this, the hall clock began to strike twelve.  The Captain rose, after filling his glass to the brim.

“Bumpers round, gentlemen.  On your legs.  Ready?  Hooray!  Here’s to the shade of the year that’s gone, and may it have buried all our cares with it!  And here’s good luck to the one setting-in.  A happy New Year to you all; and may we never know a moment in it worse than the present!  Three-times-three—­and drain your glasses.”

“But we have had the toast too soon!” called out one of the farmers, making the discovery close after the cheers had subsided.  “It wants some minutes yet to midnight, Captain.”

Captain Monk snatched out his watch—­worn in those days in what was called the fob-pocket—­its chain and bunch of seals at the end hanging down.