"I see him brawly," he would say, "standing afore me, an' if he disna instantly mak retribution, I am determined this very day to mak a public example of him." Before the time of the Burke and Hare murders Snecky's father was sent round Thrums to proclaim the startling news that a grave in the kirkyard had been tampered with.

The "resurrectionist" scare was at its height then, and the patriarch, who was one of the men in Thrums paid to watch new graves in the night-time, has often told the story.
The town was in a ferment as the news spread, and there were fierce suspicious men among Hobart's hearers who already had the rifler of graves in their eye.
He was a man who worked for the farmers when they required an extra hand, and loafed about the square when they could do without him.

No one had a good word for him, and lately he had been flush of money.
That was sufficient.

There was a rush of angry men through the "pend" that led to his habitation, and he was dragged, panting and terrified, to the kirkyard before he understood what it all meant.

To the grave they hurried him, and almost without a word handed him a spade.