In 1973 I read an old hardcover book containing European children’s stories.  The stories were probably written in the early 1900s.  In one story a boy is working for a man in a village and unknowingly helps the man rob a house; the man uses a ladder to enter the second story of the house.  Someone pulls up the driveway and they flee.  Days later the boy returns to the village, is forgiven, and continues to be friends with the girl who lives in the house.  He tells her how he fled through the woods and fields for days.  He tells her that when he was fleeing, he met the man again by a lake, and the man said to keep running.  There is no magic involved in this short work; it is not a fantasy.  The story was written for ten to twelve year old readers.