The Highland glen

by Matilda Wrench

For them and for their little ones provide,

But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.”

Such was the condition of a Highland family in the autumn of 1845. And now we are about to reverse the picture; to show our Highland family under other circumstances, and we would entreat the reader to remember that since the joyous and the grievous, the bright days and dark days, are alike of God’s appointment, it must be good for us to look upon both,—to look, to meditate, to minister, and it may be, in so doing, to learn a lesson that may be to our profit as well as theirs. May God of his infinite mercy grant it, to the glory of his holy name, through Jesus Christ!

Eighteen months had passed over the Highland cottage, and in their brief course had swept away almost all that it had once contained of the appliances of domestic usefulness and comfort; for the scarcity which had been felt on the partial failure of the potato crop in 1845, had, in consequence of the general failure of the following year, advanced through the successive stages of privation and destitution, till it might now truly be said in the simple, but emphatic language of Scripture, that “the famine was sore in the land,” for “their food has been destroyed, and means of purchasing other food they have not.”[2]

It is about the second week in January, 1847, that we would again introduce our friends to the home of the M’Kenzies. An air of desolation now reigned around it,—all was still. There was no hum of children’s voices making glad the lonely glen; the fowls that had gathered round the cottage-door were no longer to be seen, the pig-stye was empty,[3] the stream was frost-bound.

The thatch which had been secured by birch twigs linked together in the Highland fashion, and kept down by a great stone suspended from the twisted ends, and dangling in front, was half off. The elder bush that had grown beside the shed was gone, and its hollow branches no longer creaked in the wintry blast, for when labour was scarce, and peat was three times its usual price, any thing that would serve for firing was little likely to be spared. The interior of the cottage offered a sad and striking contrast to the scene of joy and plenty it had presented before.

The table, formerly so hospitably spread for us, was gone; the meal-chest, the children’s bed, the comfortable settle, each in its turn had been parted with for food; the inner door was open, and there were the bairns, no longer fresh, rosy, full of life and vigour; they had ceased to attend the school; they had ceased to climb the overhanging rocks, and splash and dabble, like so many wild birds, in the stream that foamed beneath the ledge on which the cottage stood. Poor children! they were all lying huddled together on a mattress, with a dirty blanket over it: their old pet the grey cat curled up among the group. They were scarcely covered, for the one scanty, tattered garment which did not reach the knees, showed the deep poverty that had fallen on the parents. They were anxiously waiting for the hour when the little portion of milk which the wretched half, no, not half-fed cow, still yielded, was to be divided among them. It was now three days since they had tasted any other nourishment, and M’Kenzie and his wife began to think it would be better to sell or kill their cow, than thus to see their little ones pining away beneath the united pangs of cold and hunger. But there had been no fire upon the hearth that day; for the few peats that remained were husbanded to dress the meals that they were daily hoping might, through some providential channel, come to them. And the children awoke at night, crying with cold; and one of them sobbed, and said,—“Collie is always warm. Oh! mither, let me gang sleep wi’ Collie; for Robin and Moggie are like the frost to me.” The father spoke not! but he went to the shed and led in the poor miserable-looking cow, that staggered from weakness as it stepped over the stones at the door. He brought it to the side of the children’s bed, and, when it lay down they stretched themselves upon it, and the gentle creature, that in happier days had been caressed and often wreathed with garlands of the broom and heather by them, turned its head and fixed its large mild eye upon them, as though sensible of their sufferings, and pleased to minister to them, and for some hours suffering was forgotten in sleep.

The following morning word was brought that there was work to be had at ——, across the hills, and that, perhaps, M’Kenzie might be able to get some. He sighed heavily, but he nodded assent, and, bidding his wife get the Bible from the shelf, and beckoning to the children to come and stand around him, he read the twenty-third Psalm, and his voice became firm and clear as he said,—“I shall not want,” for he said it in David’s spirit, and he believed it in his heart, and the sense of his failing strength that had clouded his brow, gave place to the assurance of faith, as he read the promise of the Staff that is of power to support the weak. And when he had prayed that in the might of the promise he might go forth, he lifted the hymn as usual; and it was a hymn of praise, so that the passing stranger might still have thought it went up from light and happy hearts. And so, indeed, it did; for how “shall the righteous be made sad, whom I have not made sad? saith the Lord God.”

The morning worship over, M’Kenzie started on his long and toilsome walk. The embankment, which was the scene of labour, was full ten miles off, over moor and mountain, but he got there after two hours’ hard walking, and applied for employment. He was received, and at the end of the day was paid one shilling for his toil; and he went further ere he turned towards his home, to spend his earnings in meal for his family. It was late ere he reached his cabin, his little ones had cried themselves to sleep. His wife, after watching long for his return, oft turning to her sleeping children in the sickness of hope deferred, and then again straining her eyes to look through the casement for her husband, had seated herself at the foot of the bed with her hands clasped tightly together, the indication of a strong mental effort to repress the feelings of anxious suspicion that were busy at her heart, and thus M’Kenzie found her. He shewed the bag of meal, and told her that he had no doubt of being employed at the embankment while the works were in progress; but as he spoke, his words became tremulous, his hand dropped, and he would have fallen, if his wife had not supported, and half dragged him to the bed. Reader, you have read in books of fancy and fiction, scenes of imaginary faintings from imaginary sources of emotion and of suffering, and, perhaps, you have wept at them; and for such imaginary distresses, your tears were enough, nay, all too much. They will not suffice here. M’Kenzie had walked ten miles to his labour. He had honestly put forth all his strength to his appointed task, he had made a circuit of six miles to get the oatmeal for his children ere he set out on his homeward path. All this he had done, and he had not tasted food that day. His wife succeeded so far in reviving him, that he raised his head and looked around, but he could not speak. She looked for a sup of milk in the earthen jar—their only remaining vessel of any kind,—but it was empty. The poor respited cow gave what she could—a scanty supply, all thin and watery! and unlike the rich abundance she had formerly yielded; still it was precious, and as Margaret saw the colour stealing over her husband’s wan face, she was thankful that Collie had been spared. If they could but manage to keep her alive still, but the skin hung in huge wrinkles over the projecting bones, and except the dry and withered bracken, fodder there was none for her.

To kindle the few smouldering peats that lay upon the hearth, and to prepare a mess of porridge for her husband, was Margaret’s next care, but M’Kenzie protested that he was abundantly refreshed already, and that he was too sleepy to wait for the cooking of the porridge. Margaret urged him, but he would not be persuaded, and they closed the day with prayer and reading, and together joined in praising Him who had made good his promise of the morning, and supplied their need,—“I shall not want;” and as they lay down on their heather mattress with their little ones, all sense of want was gone, and filled with the consciousness of their Heavenly Father’s presence with them, and of his love towards them, his everlasting love in Christ Jesus, they slept in peace! Reader, what would they have had to sustain their fainting spirits if they had been living without God in the world?