"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.
"By Jupiter!" he exclaimed. "Hang that butler of mine! He knew the hall clock was too fast, and I told him to put it back. If his memory serves him no better than this, he may ship himself off to a fresh berth.—Hark! Listen!"
It was the church clock striking twelve. The sound reached the dining-room very clearly, the wind setting that way. "Another bumper," cried the Captain, and his guests drank it.
"This day twelvemonth I was at a feast in Derbyshire; the bells of a neighbouring church rang-in the year with pleasant melody; chimes they were," remarked a guest, who was a partial stranger. "Your church has no bells, I suppose?"
"It has one; an old ting-tang that calls us to service on a Sunday," said Mr. Winter.
"I like to hear those midnight chimes, for my part. I like to hear them chime-in the new year," went on the stranger.
"Chimes!" cried out Captain Monk, who was getting very considerably elated, "why should we not have chimes? Mr. West, why don't we have chimes?"