It was here, too, that the
incident befell which gave rise to the ballad written by Mr. James
Telfer early in last century.
Ringan had ever been known as well for his rigid ideas of faith and
honour as for his great strength and undaunted courage, and these
qualities had brought him greatly into the esteem and friendship of his
landlord, one of the earliest of the Marquesses of Lothian. It is said
that when the Marquess, towards the end of his life, found it necessary
to take what was then the tedious and toilsome journey to London, he
sent for Ringan, and giving him the key of a room in Ferniehurst in
which were kept important and valuable deeds and family papers, charged
him on no account to allow anyone to enter the room or to interfere with
the papers until he (the Marquess) should return. It happened, however,
shortly after Lord Lothian's departure that his heir had occasion to
wish to enter this locked room, and he sent to demand the key from
Ringan. The old man, naturally and rightly, refused to depart from the
instructions he had received when the key was delivered to him, and the
reply he sent to the young lord may probably have been somewhat blunt
and uncompromising. In any case, hot words passed between him and the
indignant heir, who considered, perhaps not unnaturally, that
prohibition to enter the locked room, to whomsoever else it might apply,
certainly could not under any circumstances apply to him.
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