ed visions of
Robinson Crusoe, Christopher Columbus, and Alexander Selkirk floated
across their brains. "I am monarch of all I survey," said Pennie on the
first occasion. And so she was, for everything seen from that giddy
height looked strange and new to her, and it was quite like going into
another country.

The old church tower with the chattering jackdaws flying round it, the
pear-tree near the nursery window, the row of bee-hives in the
kitchen-garden, the distant fields where the cows were no bigger than
brown and white specks, all were lifted out of everyday life for a
little while. No one had forbidden this performance, because no one
knew of it, and the secrecy of it added to the mystery which belonged to
everything in the garret.

It was not difficult to keep it hidden from the elders, for they did not
go into the lumber-room from year's end to year's end; so the spiders
and the children had it all to themselves, and did just as they liked
there, and wove their cobwebs and their fancies undisturbed. Now,
amongst Pennie's listeners when she told her tales of what went on in
the garret after nightfall, Ambrose was the one who heard with the most
rapt attention and the most absolute belief. He came next to Nancy in
age, and formed the most perfect contrast to her in appearance and
character, for Nancy was a robust blue-eyed child, bold and fearless,
and Ambrose was a slender little fellow with a freckled skin and a face
full of sensitive expression. He was full of fears and fancies, too,
poor little Ambrose, and amongst the children he was considered not far
short of a coward; it had become a habit to say, "Ambrose is afraid," on
the smallest occasions, and if they had been asked who was the bravest
amongst them, they would certainly have pointed out Nancy. For Nancy
did not mind the dark, Nancy would climb any tree you liked, Nancy could
walk along the top of a high narrow wall without being giddy, Nancy had
never been known to cry when she was hurt, therefore Nancy was a brave
child. Ambrose, on the contrary, _did_ mind all these things very much;
his imagination pictured dangers and terrors in them which did not exist
for Nancy, and what she performed with a laugh and no sense of fear, was
to him often an occasion of trembling apprehension. And then he was
_so_ afraid of the dark! That was a special subject of derision from
the others, for even Dickie was bolder in the matter of dark passages
and b