Introduction - Page 2

his
marriage-bed filled, and that, instead of becoming nurse to an old
man, his household dame had preferred being the lady-love of a
young one. Numerous are the stories of this kind told in different
parts of Europe; and the returned knight or baron, according to
his temper, sat down good naturedly contented with the account
which his lady gave of a doubtful matter, or called in blood and
fire to vindicate his honour, which, after all, had been
endangered chiefly by his forsaking his household gods to seek
adventures in Palestine.

Scottish tradition, quoted, I think, in some part of the Border
Minstrelsy, ascribes to the clan of Tweedie, a family once stout
and warlike, a descent which would not have misbecome a hero of
antiquity. A baron, somewhat elderly we may suppose, had wedded a
buxom young lady, and some months after their union he left her to
ply the distaff alone in his old tower, among the mountains of the
county of Peebles, near the sources of the Tweed. He returned
after seven or eight years, no uncommon space for a pilgrimage to
Palestine, and found his family had not been lonely in his
absence, the lady having; been cheered by the arrival of a
stranger, (of whose approach she could give the best account of
any one,) who hung on her skirts, and called her mammy, and was
just such as the baron would have longed to call his son, but that
he could by no means make his age correspond, according to the
doctrine of civilians, with his own departure for Palestine. He
applied to his wife, therefore, for the solution of this dilemma.
The lady, after many floods of tears, which she had reserved for
the occasion, informed the honest gentleman, that, walking one day
alone by the banks of the infant river, a human form arose from a
deep eddy, still known and termed Tweed-pool, who deigned to
inform her that he was the tutelar genius of the stream, and,
_bongre malgre_, became the father of the sturdy fellow,
whose appearance had so much surprised her husband. This story,
however suitable to Pagan times, would have met with full credence
from few of the baron's contemporaries, but the wife was young and
beautiful, the husband old and in his dotage; her family (the
Frazers, it is believed) were powerful and warlike, and the baron
had had fighting enough in the holy wars. The event was, that he
believed, or seemed to believe, the tale, and remained contented
with the child with whom his wife and the Tweed had generously
presented him. The only circumstance which preserved the memory of
the incident was, that the youth retained the name of Tweed, or
Tweedie. The baron, meanwhile, could not, as the old Scotch song
says, "Keep the cradle rowing," and the Tweed apparently thought