He had a pleasant way of whistling, lively and musical.

He nearly always whistled hymns.

He had been a choir-boy with a beautiful voice, and had taken solos in Southwell cathedral.

His morning whistling alone betrayed it.
His wife lay listening to him tinkering away in the garden, his whistling ringing out as he sawed and hammered away.

It always gave her a sense of warmth and peace to hear him thus as she lay in bed, the children not yet awake, in the bright early morning, happy in his man's fashion.
At nine o'clock, while the children with bare legs and feet were sitting playing on the sofa, and the mother was washing up, he came in from his carpentry, his sleeves rolled up, his waistcoat hanging open.