Another time Mr. C---- was spending a day with Mr. Peake, then curate of Ellesmere. At noon he went up to his room, and Mr. Peake heard him whistling very strangely on one note. He went up, knocked at his door, and asked him what he was doing. "Oh nothing," said Mr. C----. "But what are you whistling in that queer way for?" said Mr. Peake. "Oh, well, if you must know," he answered, "I was saying my prayers." "Saying your prayers!" said Mr. Peake, "why, you were whistling!" "Yes, I know," said Mr. C----; "the fact is your maid was cleaning your room next to mine, and I thought she would think it odd perhaps if I intoned my sexts, as I generally do, so I thought I would whistle them to-day."
Several stories occur in connection with Oswestry, which was the market town for Whittington.
Extract from a sermon preached by a curate of Oswestry upon the scene between St. Paul and St. Peter at Antioch. The words were taken down at the time [N.B.--_Hibernice legendum_]: "So Paul seized the banner of the Gospel out of the hands of poor, weak, compromising Peter, and waved it in a flood of light and liberty over the head of the Galatian Church."
A certain Calvinistic curate of Oswestry met a neighbour who had unhappily seceded to Rome, and thus described the interview to his vicar. "I met ---- yesterday, and said to him, 'Not a day of my life passes that I do not pray for you.' And what do you think he said? Why, 'And not a day of _my_ life passes that I do not pray for _you_.' The impudence of the fellow!"
A certain clergyman of this diocese, risen from the ranks, was preaching at Trinity Church, Oswestry, and found in the course of the service that he had forgotten his pocket-handkerchief. As he felt he should require one during the sermon, the weather being very warm, he asked a lady in a pew close to the pulpit, as he went up, to lend him hers, which he duly returned as he went down again!
Whittington being on the borders of Wales, Dissent was extremely prevalent, and the Church's action towards Dissenters was a burning subject. Hence the following story:
At a clerical meeting soon after I came into these parts the subject discussed was, "How to treat Dissenters." After most of those present had spoken, a neighbouring rector said, "I make it a principle never to speak to Dissenters about religious matters. But I have a very good garden with a southern slope, and I send them baskets of early vegetables, and by this means I have brought several over to the Church."