Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-04-11
POOR ROBBER (!
ny OCTAVE THANET.


Harry always wants his aunt Alice to
tell him "truly true story" So one
a,ght she told him this ''truly true
story
$50 many years ago that grandms's
grandma couldn't remember it, when
people were still writing sixteen at the
right of their figures for the year and all
the big men wore short trousers like lit
tic boys, with swords dangling about
their legs; and there were no RAILWAYS,
no telegraph wires, no steam engines,
and carriages were Sc heavy and clumsy
that people were carried about the streets
in covered chairs BY men, and forks
were only used by rich people, and
witches could be burned alive-lopr,
tong ago, two hundred years ago, there
was Scottish knight who had a brave
laughter. The knights name was Sir
John Cochrane, and the girls name was
Griselda, but he always called her Grizzly.
Grizzy WIS the best and most dating
rider in all the country.
"Now, at this time the King was
cruel man, and TO escape his vengeance
Slr John had fled across the seas, Fool
lsh'y he came back, with the Earl OF
Argyle, and they tried te make the Duke
of Monmouth King instead of james.
That is how it came to pass that one
morning Grizzly looked through the
funny little pancs of window glass in a
Highland castle and saw the stone court
yard below swarming with armed men,
all in their Highland kits"
"Why, did big men wear kits. them"
said Harry.
eyes, dear, " said his aunt, 'but not
quite like your kits, they were shorter
and made out of plaided wool, and their
stockings (Which they called 'trews0
were plaided also"
"Oh, l know" said Harry, "Willy
Grant has Highland clothes; and he has
white skin purse and dagger, not a
real dagger, but make-believc dag
ger
"But the Highlanders had real daggers
dirk: they called them-stuck in their
belts. And they carried huge swords
which they called claymores, and round
shield which they called buckler."
"Didn't they carry any guns?" asked
Harry eagerly, II should think the othe,
soldiers would shoot them all dead be-
fore they could get up to cut with their
swords"
"oh, yes, they carried guns" said
aunt Alice, laughing, "but they always
threw their guns away"
"Then what was the good of them ~
said shrewd little Harry.
ooh, dare say they got them again,
after the battle. You see this was the
way the .Highlanders fought They fired
off their guns, with more noise than hurt,
most likely, then they yelled 'Claymore ?
and charged like a herd of wild bulls.
And so frightful was this mass of furious
men with their swords, and so difficult
was it, in those days, with their lumber
ing, awkward guns, to fix the bayonet in
time to fight, that often the ,Lowland in.
fautry were panic stricken and fed, pell
NELL"
''Wasn't Grizzy frightened, when she
saw all those fierce men,"
sob, no; because theJ loved her father,
and she knew they would do no harm.
She laughed to hear the bagpipes' shrill
notes and the mems shouts, and swung
back the window and leaned out to see.
Doubtless she felt proud of her hand
some father on his gray horse, and when,
that morning, not much later, lie rode
away she waved her scarf until they were
out of sight.
Poor Grizzly only few weeks passed
before she knew that of all those gallant
men hardly score, wounded, hall
starved, hunted like wolves, had crawled
back to their glcns; and her father over.
powered, after a desperate resistance,
was taken away to prison.
"Ah, how many tears were shed in
Scotland and England during those
hideous daysl Ali over the country the
the Kings Dragons were shooting and
burning. They burned down the houses,
and broke the stones of the mills, and
tore up the fruit trees so that all the
country about Inverary, where the Earl
of Argyle lived, was a desert. They cut
off the poor prisoners eals when they did
not kill them outright, before sending
them across the sea to be slaves. In Eng
land wicked Judge Jeffries condemned
the rebels as fast as he could pass scn-
tence.
''But dare not tell you all the wicked.
ness that was done. Long ago, the cruel
King lost his crown aad died wanderer
long ago, the cruel Judge died, IN prison,
amid the curses of a whole nation-thev
were punished as vigorously as the bad
giants in yolr fairy tales, and my story
is not about them, but about poor Grizzy
Cochrane, who has just heard that her
father is in the strong Edinburgh prison
condemned to die
"She thought of all the friends that
her father had. Some OF them could
not help him, because they, like
him, were rebels, and in hiding