An Open Grave on Sunday

Chambers printed a correspondent’s collection of sayings about death. If a grave stood open on a Sunday, another would be dug before the week was out; the writer had met the saying in one parish, where a woman who said it on her way from church was herself dead within the week and the grave was dug for her. A corpse that stayed limp and did not stiffen was a sign of another death in the family before the year was out. The writer had watched a bystander grow grave when his own dead child’s limbs stayed supple.