UP the Glen, far from any neighbor, lived old Jenny The few cottages round her had fallen into ruins, for their inhabitants had long ago moved away, but she remained on, her heart filled with memories of those she had lost, and better still with the sense of the presence of her Heavenly Father who did not leave her alone, but cared for her, and supplied all her need.
She was known and loved in all the country round. There were few houses where her help in sickness was not known, especially as she had a long list of cures, made from plants and roots which in those long-ago days were the only medicines used in the Highlands of Scotland, the scene of this story.
A goat and a few hens were all Jenny’s property. But then she received wool from one family, and meal from another, and peats to burn from a third, and so she lived in comfort, and felt that every gift was a sign of kindness. Spring was the trying season, when the winter had almost exhausted all her means of living. The meal was nearly gone—potatoes were not then common among the poor—the pasture was scanty for the goat, and Jenny was sometimes forced to take a journey to visit her kind neighbors who were always ready to replenish her stores.
Well, it so happened that one day a dreadful snowstorm came on just as she was planning an excursion to get some meal, and when her but was almost empty of food, except the little milk she could get from her goat. For a long time that snowstorm was a sort of date in the country round, and people counted so many years before or after “the great storm.” When the heavens at last became clear, the whole face of the country seemed changed. The neighbors thought of old Jenny, and wondered what she had been doing all this time, but for many days such was the state of the weather that no mortal foot could wade through the snow-wreaths, or buffet the successive storms which swept down with blinding fury from the hills. Jenny was given up as lost. On the first day the attempt was possible, three men resolved to proceed up the long and dreary glen to search for Jenny. They carried food in their plaids, and whatever comforts they thought necessary, and resolved to bring the old woman home with them, if they found her alive. So off they went, and many an eye watched those three black dots amidst the snow, slowly tracking their way up Glen Immeren.
At last they reached a rock at an angle, where the glen takes a turn to the left, and where the old woman’s cottage ought to have been seen. But nothing met the eye except a smooth white sheet of glittering snow, surmounted by black rocks; and all below was silent as the sky above! No sign of life greeted eye or ear. The men spoke not, but muttered some exclamation of sorrow.
“She is alive,” suddenly cried one of the shepherds, “for I see smoke”. They pushed bravely on. When they reached the hut, nothing was visible except the chimneys, and even they were lower than the snowdrift. There was no immediate entrance but by one of the wide chimneys, very different to those we see now-a-days. A shepherd first called to Jenny down the chimney, and asked if she was alive, but, before receiving a reply, a large fox sprang out of the chimney, and darted off to the rocks.
“Alive!” replied Jenny, “but thank God you have come to see me! I cannot say, Come in by the door, but, Come down, come down.”
In a few minutes her three friends descended by the chimney, and were shaking Jenny’s hand warmly. Hurried questions were put and answered.
“O, woman! how have you lived all this time?”
“Sit down, and I will tell you, “said old Jenny, whose feelings now gave way to a fit of weeping. After composing herself, she continued, “How did I live?” You ask. “I may say just as I have always lived—by the power and goodness of God, who feeds the wild beasts.”
“The wild beasts, indeed,” replied Sandy, drying his eyes, “did you know that a wild beast was in your own house? Did you see the fox that jumped out of your chimney as we entered?”
“My blessings on the dear beast!” said Jenny, with fervor. “May no huntsman ever kill it, and may it never want food either summer or winter!”
The shepherds looked at one another by the dim light of Jenny’s fire, evidently thinking that she had become slightly insane.
“Stop, lads,” she continued, “till I tell you the story. I had in the house, when the storm began, the goat and the hens. Fortunately, I had fodder gathered for the goat, which kept it alive, although, poor thing, it has had but scanty meals. But it lost its milk. I had also peats for my fire, but very little meal, yet I never lived better, and I have been able, besides, to preserve my bonny hens for the summer. I every day dined on fresh meat too, a thing I have not done for years before.”
Again the shepherds were amazed, and asked, “Where did you get meat, Jenny?”
“From the old fox, Sandy.”
“The fox!” they all exclaimed.
“Ay, the fox,” said Jenny, “just the dear old fox, the best friend I ever had. The day of the storm he looked into the chimney, and came slowly down, and set himself on the rafter beside the hens, yet never once touched them. He hunted regularly, and brought in game in abundance for his own dinner—a hare almost every day—and what he left I took, and washed, and cooked, and ate, and so I have never wanted! Now he has gone, you have come to relieve me.”
“God’s ways are past finding out!” said the men, bowing down their heads with reverence.
“Praise Him,” said Jenny, “who giveth food to the hungry!”
Does not this true story remind us of the ravens whom God sent with bread and flesh to the prophet Elijah? And does it not show us too that He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, will with Him also freely give us all things?
ML 06/23/1918