unted 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. Perhaps had he
gone in the first instance himself to Ringan and explained matters the
affair might without much difficulty have been arranged. But he had
taken the other course, and had demanded the key as a matter of right.
Hence came hot words between the two, and the upshot was that the
younger man left boiling with resentment at the "old Cameronian devil,
Ringan Oliver," and threatening to pay him out.

No very long time after this the old Marquess died, and Ringan's enemy
reigned in his stead. Nor was it long ere he began to show that no
portion of the wrath conceived by him against the old man had been
allowed to die for want of nursing. One September day, when Ringan's
crop was all but ready to cut, there came across the water from
Ferniehurst the new Marquess accompanied by several mounted men,
servants, and others, with dogs. Soon the party began riding over the
farm, ostensibly looking for hares; finally, they all went into the
standing crop, trampling it down wantonly, hallooing their dogs here,
there, and everywhere, and galloping furiously about wherever the corn
stood thickest. Ringan had been rapidly becoming more and more angry as
he found that the damage done was so manifestly wilful damage; and at
last, finding remonstr