Many pious people
also improved the circumstance, pointing out that these omens were
evidence of God's great mercy, inasmuch as He vouchsafed to give a
timely warning in order that the dying persons might prepare for death,
and make their peace with the great Judge. To have hinted, under such
circumstances, that the ticking sounds were caused by a small wood moth
tapping for its mate, would have subjected the hinter to the name of
infidel or unbeliever in Scripture, as superstitious people always took
shelter in Scripture.
Persons hearing a tingling sound in their ears, called the _deid bells_,
expected news of the death of a friend or neighbour. A knock heard at
the door of the patient's room, and on opening no person being found,
was a sure warning of approaching death. If the same thing occurred
where there was no patient, it was a sign that some relation at a
distance had died. I was sitting once in the house of a newly married
couple, when a loud knock was heard upon the floor under a chair, as if
some one had struck the floor with a flat piece of wood.
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