The watch-night was a Welsh custom of sitting up through the night with a dead body before its burial. Edmund Jones disapproved of how it was often kept, as an occasion for drinking and games in a house of mourning.
At the house of Meredith Thomas in Bedwellty parish, after the death of his child of about four, the watchers included some sober people, Margaret Andrew and William Harry Rees, both Baptists, and two men Jones calls profane, Thomas Edward Morgan and Anthony Aaron. The two men played cards and swore dreadfully, though no one else would play with them.
While they played, a lamentable groaning came from the window. Everyone heard it except, it seemed, the two players. William Harry Rees persuaded them to stop, and the groaning stopped. When they started again, it came back, louder. They said it was someone playing tricks. Rees told them it was no man but an evil spirit, and that it might come in if they did not stop. One of the company, bolder than the rest, took the poker and called the dogs to go out with him and see who was there. The dogs would not go. They had heard the groaning too, and they crept under the stools and between people's feet, and beating would not drive them to the door.
That convinced everyone. The two men gave up their cards. Jones had the story from Elizabeth Isaac, who was present, and says it became widely known and helped end card playing at watch-nights in that neighbourhood.
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