The Plan
Eckford lies 13 miles south of Kelso and the pair of miscreants currently digging furiously among the gravestones had travelled to the Eckford in a gig.
Realizing that he had to do something to stop the body snatchers, Jim decided to create a diversion.
Untying their horse from along the churchyard wall, he gave it a sharp slap on its behind sending it and the gig racing across the nearby fields.
The bodysnatchers, noticing that their only means of getting home was running loose, dropped everything.
Whilst the body snatchers huffed and puffed across the field, Dandy Jim put his plan into action.
He swapped places with the freshly exhumed corpse which was lying next to the open grave. Not long afterwards, the two body snatchers, muttering and cursing to one another, returned to the churchyard to collect the cadaver and be on their way.
The Corpse Is Warm
‘My!’ exclaimed one of the body snatchers, ‘this corpse is a heavy one‘! Heavy or not, Jim was thrown into the back of the gig to start the journey back to Kelso.
It was not a relaxed affair. The two body snatchers, fearful of being caught, were becoming more and more agitated as the miles slipped by.
‘I’ll take an oath before the Justice of the Peace’ declared one, ‘the body’s warm!’
Unable to restrain himself any longer, and growing hot under the cover of the cloth, Jim threw off the covers from his face and cried:
‘Warm you say? Pray, what would you be if you came from where I have been?’
With a tremendous leap, the body snatchers jumped from the gig, one tearing across the open fields the other heading for the cover of woodland.
As soon as he’d finished laughing, Jim turned the horse around and headed home to Kelso, the proud new owner of a horse and gig.
It is from this attempt that the parishioners of Eckford rallied round and decided to build the watchtower so that their dearly departed might rest in peace.
Or so it is said.