Hugh Thomson's sketch,) are two panels, that to the left showing the armorial bearings of the Kers, and above, on a scroll, the words: S. SOLIDEO "forward in y" name of god"; at the foot, a.k. 1.5.9.8 On the panel to the right is the word "forward"; in the centre of the panel the arms of Sir Andrew's wife, Dame Ann D. SOLIDEO Stewart, and beneath, a.s. 1.5.9.8. As late as 1767 the house seems to have been occasionally used by the Lord Lothian of that day, but it was even then showing signs of dilapidation. It was, however, occupied by farming tenants down to a recent date, as late, I believe, as 1889. About that year extensive repairs were carried out; {136}the ivy which--however picturesque it may have been--was slowly throttling the old walls, was removed, the panels were refaced, the roof made wind and weather proof, and the interior to a great extent restored. At Smailcleuchfoot, a little higher up the river, and nearly opposite to Fernilhirst Mill, almost, as one might say, within a stone's cast of the castle, stood once the house of a man greatly famed in Jedforest,--Auld Ringan Oliver. No vestige of the house now remains, but the memory of Ringan and the story of the siege he stood within his cottage here still live in Border lore, and were sung of in James Telfer's "Border Ballads" close on a century ago. "The crystal Jed by Smailcleuchfoot Flows on with murmuring din; It seems to sing a dowie dirge For him that dwelt therein."