Settled into a quiet cottage with his new bride, a skeptical young husband dismisses the local legend that two marble knights lying in effigy at the nearby church rise from their tombs and walk every Halloween night — until superstition curdles into something he can no longer explain away. Edith Nesbit, better remembered today for The Railway Children, was also one of the finest ghost story writers of her generation, and this compact, relentlessly effective tale is often ranked among the best Victorian horror stories ever written. Short enough for one sitting, unsettling enough to stay with you long after.
