They went over the field, where a thin, keen wind blew round the ball of the hill, in the starlight. They came to the stile, and to the side of Anna's house.

The lights were out, only on the blinds of the rooms downstairs, and of a bedroom upstairs, firelight flickered.

“We'd better leave 'em alone,” said Alfred Brangwen.

“Nay, nay,” said Tom. “We'll carol 'em, for th' last time.”

And in a quarter of an hour's time, eleven silent, rather tipsy men scrambled over the wall, and into the garden by the yew trees, outside the windows where faint firelight glowered on the blinds. There came a shrill sound, two violins and a piccolo shrilling on the frosty air.