Beginning life as a shepherd, he gradually educated himself for the post of a country schoolmaster.
He taught first at Castleton, Langholm, Dumfriesshire, and then for twenty-five years conducted a small adventure school at Saughtrees, Liddisdale, Roxburghshire.
On a very limited income he supported a wife and family, and found leisure for literary work.
From youth he had been an admirer and imitator of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who befriended him.
As a writer of the archaic and quaint ballad style illustrated in Hogg's ‘Queen's Wake,’ Telfer eventually attained a measure of ease and even elegance in composition, and in 1824 he published a volume entitled ‘Border Ballads and Miscellaneous Poems.’ The ballad, ‘The Gloamyne Buchte,’ descriptive of the potent influence of fairy song, is a skilful development of a happy conception.