M. R. James

“ That night, as he lay in his bed upstairs, a moaning wind began to play about the house, and he could not go to sleep. He got up and crossed the room to a little cupboard in the wall: he took out of it something that clinked, and put it in the breast of his bedgown. Then he went to the window and looked out into the churchyard.
Have you ever seen an old brass in a church with a figure of a person in a shroud? It is bunched together at the top of the head in a curious way. Something like that was sticking up out of the earth in a spot of the churchyard which John Poole knew very well. ”

“ What with the passing bell, and the torches when there's a burial, and all them graves laying so quiet when there's no one about: only they say there's lights—don't you never see no lights, Master Poole?'
‘No, I don't never see no lights,' said Master Poole sulkily, and called for another drink, and went home late. ”

“ In those days it was common to bury people at night and by torchlight: and it was noticed that whenever a funeral was toward, John Poole was always at his window, either on the ground floor or upstairs, according as he could get the better view from one or the other. ”