Mrs Griffiths’s Dream

Lady Clerk of Penicuik used to tell how her father, young Mr Dacre from Cumberland, lodging in Edinburgh with his uncle Major Griffiths, planned to join a fishing party going out in a boat from Leith at six the next morning. Three times in the night Mrs Griffiths cried out in her sleep that the boat was sinking, and she persuaded her nephew to send his apologies. His companions went out, a squall caught them in the Firth of Forth, the boat went over and most of them drowned. Chambers found the wreck recorded on 7 August 1734, three years later than Lady Clerk supposed.