1. Turnerina de Margaret.
2. Turnerannah de Mary Elizabeth.
3. Alfred Fitz Cawley de Walker.
4. Bernard de Belton.
5. Cornelius la Compston.
6. Turnerica Henrica Ulrica da Gloria de Lavinia Rebekah.
7. John de Hillgreave.
8. Eignah de George Turner Jones.
9. Fighonghangal o Temardugh Hope de Hindley.
10. Turnwell William ap Owen de Pringle.
11. Turnerietta de Johannah Jane de Faith.
12. Faithful Thomas.
Surely the father who invented these names was a born humorist! It must have been the father, for no mother would have permitted her children to be thus bedizened with absurd appellations if it had not been that her lack of humour failed to see the fun of her husband's gorgeous caricature of the "upper ten."
It has often been said that the power of recognising an object when represented in a picture is not natural but acquired. The following story of one of the "Old Men's Dinners" at Whittington Rectory goes to show that in the early days of photography the rustic population had difficulty in discerning the portraits somewhat dimly shadowed forth on the old-fashioned glass and metal plates.
I always have a dinner of from twenty to thirty of the oldest men of the parish on New Year's day, and on one of these occasions I was displaying to my guests a photograph of two old men who had long worked at the Rectory, and who were taken in their working clothes, one with a spade, and the other holding a little tree as if about to plant it. A very deaf old man, Richard Jones, took it in his hand, and looking at it said, "Beautiful! Beautiful!" So I shouted, "Who are they, Richard?" "Why," he said, "it's Abraham offering up Isaac, to be sure!" I tried to undeceive him, and, as the old men who had been photographed were sitting opposite to him, I said, "You'll see them before you if you will look up." But all I could get was a serene smile, "Yes, yes, I sees 'em before me—by faith."
The Rector of Whittington was blessed with a succession of valuable curates, who for the most part became his close personal friends, and he was also on the most friendly terms with the clergy of the neighbouring parishes. Concerning his curates or his neighbours, he would now and then note an amusing incident, some of which must find a place here while we are dealing with his Whittington career.
When the curacy of Whittington was vacant on one occasion I had an application from a young clergyman who sent me a sermon on Baptism, which he had preached in his last parish, thinking that I should like to see what his doctrine was. However, his opinion on every controverted point was studiously concealed. I have, nevertheless, preserved one passage, the doctrine of which is interesting. It ran as follows: "In the East baptism was frequently practised by immersion, but in a cold climate like ours, where we apply water only to the face and hands, such a practice would be injurious to the health."
A very shy, nervous curate of mine had to take the service alone here one Sunday morning soon after his ordination. There were banns of marriage for two couples to give out, the first being for the third time of asking, and the second for the first. After reading out the four names he paused, turned very red, and astounded the congregation by adding, "The first are last and the last first."
When the house, in which a curate of mine lodged, changed hands, the new landlady agreed to pay the old one £10 for the curate. He complained to us that, having been paid for, he could not leave, however uncomfortable he might be. Shortly afterwards the new landlady told him that she had not paid the £10 and could not do so, so he paid it for her, thus paying his own valuation!
A neighbour of mine, a clergyman, who had a great dislike of discouraging little children, was one day examining a class, and asked how many sons Noah had. "Four," a little girl answered. "Ah! yes," he said, "perhaps, but one died young." He next asked what their names were. "Adam," suggested a small child. "Yes, my child," he said, "that would doubtless be the one that died young."
An Irish curate in Oswestry quoted in his sermon "the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears," and, being suddenly struck with the physical difficulties of the process, he paused a moment, and then proceeded. "How does she stop her ears? I suppose, my friends, she must clap one ear on the ground and stick her tail in the other." Curiously enough I see that Brunetto Latini, in his "Booke of Beastes," relates this as a fact in natural history. Latini was contemporary with Dante, and a great naturalist, but of the inventive sort.