Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1891-09-12 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

SOMETHING FOR YOUNG FOLKS.  LIVING AMONG ROBBERS.  "0 Cousin Sadie, do tell me a story, please do!" coaxed Fred. "I've broken my top, aud I mustn't bounce my ball in the house, and my engine won't run, and I guess it's going to rain about a week. Oh, dear !"  "What if my story-maker won't run ?" said Cousin Sadie. "I'm sure I've told all the old ones six times apiece, at least." "Can't you possibly think of just one more?" begged Fred. "Seems to me if I had a good storymaker right in my head, I'd keep it running day and night." "0, Fred, I wish you had one, but 'twould surely run down sometimes. Well, if you really must have a story, what shall it be about ?". "Oh, castles, and robbers, and all that," cried Fred, "and secret doors, and dark passages, and dun geons!"  "Well, let me think a minute," said Cousin Sadie. "We'll see if the storymaker can be wound up and oiled once more." So Fred sat expectant and quiet, and it was so still he could hear the cat purr, and a stray mouse nibbling softly in some distant corner, until at last Cousin Sadie said, "I know a true story about robbers. We lived right among them once." "Good! good!" cried Fred. "Where was it?"  "We had moved to a house in the country," she replied. "Shall I call it a castle?"  "Please do !" said he. "It sounds more like a real story."  "Well then, we'll have it real story fashion. Once upon a time we lived in a great castle high on a hill. There was a lovely grove around it, and the birds sang in the trees and the breeze blew fresh and sweet all day long. "It seemed like the safest and quietest place in the whole world, but when night came, just when it should have been most pleasant and peaceful, there were strange noises to be heard all through the castle, and after we were in bed there were quick, stealthy footsteps—and in the morning we found we had been robbed !"  "What! really, Cousin Sadie? You know you said this was a true story. And were you all killed and murdered in your beds, too ? " "Not so bad as that," said Cousin Sadie, laughing. "But we were really robbed. And the worst of it was we found there were winding passages and secret chambers in our castle that we knew nothing about; and finally it was plain enough that a whole clan of bold robbers lived right under the same roof with us!"  "Why Cousin Sadie! What a story-maker you've got!" "Oh, that wasn't made in any story-maker. That's really true. "The Governor of the castle (that was grandpa, you know) offered rewards to anyone who would bring the rascals to justice. 13nt that was all the good it did. Those robbers just came and took their choice of the best we had every night and then hid away in safe places where they might laugh at us if we tried to follow _them. .  "We could hear them dragging away our things, and quarrelling and fighting over them in their dens. "I tell you, it fairly made my blood run cold. There must have been at least 20 of them, to judge by the noise they made. "All our locks and bolts were no help at all, for you know they were in the same house with us. And as to fighting them, what could we do against so many?" "I don't see what you could do," cried Fred. "But it don't hardly seem like a true story, Cousin Sadie. What did you do?" "Well, I'll tell you, Freddie. We just got a good cat!"—Youth's C'ompanion.