Scottish tradition ascribes to the Clan of Tweedie a descent of a similar romantic nature.  A baron, somewhat elderly, had wedded a buxom young wife, but some months after their union he left her to ply the distaff among the mountains of the county of Peebles, near the sources of the Tweed.  After being absent seven or eight years—­no uncommon space for a pilgrimage to Palestine—­he returned, and found, to quote the account given by Sir Walter Scott, “his family had not been lonely in his absence, the lady having been cheered by the arrival of a stranger 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 with his own departure for Palestine.  He applied, therefore, to his wife for the solution of the dilemma, who, after many floods of tears, informed her husband that, walking one day along the banks of the river, a human form arose from a deep eddy, termed Tweed-pool, who deigned to inform her that he was the tutelar genius of the stream, and he became the father of the sturdy fellow whose appearance had so much surprised her husband.”  After listening to this strange adventure, “the husband 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.”  Having bred up the young Tweed as his heir while he lived, the baron left him in that capacity when he died, “and the son of the river-god founded the family of Drummelzier and others, from whom have flowed, in the phrase of the Ettrick shepherd, ’many a brave fellow, and many a bauld feat.’”

It may be added that, in some instances, the science of the medical jurist has aided in elucidating the history of disappearances, through identifying the discovered remains with the presumed missing subjects.  Some years ago, the examination of a skeleton found deeply imbedded in the sand of the sea-coast at a certain Scotch watering-place showed that the person when living must have walked with a very peculiar and characteristic gait, in consequence of some deposits of a rheumatic kind which affected the lower part of the spine.  The mention of this circumstance caused a search to be made through some old records of the town, and resulted in the discovery of a mysterious disappearance, which, at the time, had been duly noted—­the subject being a person whose mode of walking had made him an object of attention, and whose fate, but for the observant eye of the anatomist, must have remained wholly unknown.  Similarly, it has been pointed out how skeletons found in mines, in disused wells, in quarries, in the walls of ruins, and various other localities “imply so many social mysteries which probably occasioned in their day a wide-spread excitement, or at least agitated profoundly some small circle