Gone to Earth by Mary Webb — Read

Hazel was up early next morning. She could not sleep, and thought she would go down into the valley and look for spring mushrooms.

She crept out of the house, still as death, except for Mrs. Marston's soft yet all-pervading snores. Out in the graveyard, where as yet no bird sang, it was as if the dead had arisen in the stark hours between twelve and two, and were waiting unobtrusively, majestically, each by his own bed, to go down and break their long fast with the bee and the grass-snake in refectories too minute and too immortal to be known by the living. The tombstones seemed taller, seemed to have a presence behind them; the lush grass, lying grey and heavy with dew, seemed to have been swept by silent passing crowds. A dank smell came up, and the place had at once the unkempt look worn by the scene of some past revelry and the expectant air of a stage prepared for a coming drama.