Why Do You Sit Up With a Dead Person?

On the night of his death, livingstone employed a man by the name of jacob foster to sit up with the corpse. But so soon as the candles were lighted in the chamber of the dead man, after giving a weak and flickering light, they went out. This so alarmed foster that he abandoned his vigils and left the house. And even though the traveller wasn't a member of their family, so he wasn't one of their loved ones, they still did the customary thing for him. They buried the visitor.