Sandy's Blog
The Case of the Falling Dog
by Casagrandeblog - 09:50 on 15 July 2013
Last week I wrote about the 18th century farmer Alexander ‘Provost’ Bain of Newton. There’s another classic story about him. It concerns his first wife and a harvest dance in the barn. Three teenage boys (plus a dog) were hiding up in the hayloft to watch the dancing, when one of them - Thomas Grant - thought it would be a great laugh to drop the dog through the trapdoor on to the dancers. The dog landed right on top of the heavily pregnant Mrs. Bain, who promptly went into labour, the baby was still-born and the poor lassie died.
Horrified by what he’d done, Thomas ran to the harbour, and signed on as crew on a trading vessel bound for London. By the time the authorities traced him, the ship was heading out through the Sutors. In London, Thomas transferred to a ship heading for China, where he remained for seven years.
Thomas left behind five sisters. They had all suffered from the smallpox, and the local legend was that they had only five working eyes between them. Be that as it may, they did everything in their power to comfort the bereaved Alexander, and in due course one of the sisters - Grace, or Grizzel - became the second Mrs. Bain. So when Thomas plucked up courage to come home, he found the two families united in harmony, and he was able to settle down in Cromarty, becoming a clerk in the hemp factory.
Alexander, or ‘Provost’, was a man who enjoyed good company and his dram, and seems to have had a wee still of his own in Moriel’s Den, which leads down from Newton to the shore. Passers-by would hear him sing:
Hey my Moriel’s Den, and Ho my Moriel’s Den
I’ll drink another firlot yet, and Grizzel winna ken!
If you walk along the shore road on a clear winter’s night, listen carefully, and you might just hear it still.
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