said, “to keep the poor soul those hours a-waiting!” Now the “passing bell” was supposed in former times to serve two pur- poses: it called on all good Christians within hearing to pray for the departing spirit, and it scared away the evil spirits, who were watching to seize it, or at least to scare and terrify it. Evidently the widow thought that for want of these helps the progress of her husband’s soul to its rest was impeded.
There is, I am informed, among old-fashioned families in Northumberland, a feeling that the death of an inmate is a token of the Divine wrath, and that this wrath rests on the house until after the visit of the parish clergyman, which is therefore anxiously looked for and much valued. A friend of mine well remembers, when a curate in Northumberland some twenty- four years ago, being told by a clergyman of that county that he had been frequently asked to “bless the house” after death had
taken place in it.
