E. Nesbit

“ It was just about big enough for a man to get through, not more.
“Are you hurt? Where are you? Can’t you get out?” we now said all at once,
And Madeline replied from the depths of the earth: “I’m here—no, of course I can’t. It’s all soft leaves. I’m not hurt. I wish you’d come down and help me.”
Clifford’s ambition is, of course, to be the bravest brave that was ever tolled for, but he owns that he said: “Is it far?—far down, I mean?”
“Oh no,” said Madeline, “you can drop quite easily.”
So then he put his boots into the hole and followed them. No hero can do more. ”

“ And Olive said: “Well, it is different from home; but it’s no use repining.”
“No,” said Clifford, “we’ve jolly well got to stick it!”
“Couldn’t we tame him?” Madeline suggested, as if retired colonels were mice.
“It isn’t taming he wants, my child,” said Clifford, “he wants warming. It is iced water that flows in those veins—not blood at all.”
“We could do something to wake him up,” said Alan cheerfully.
“Let sleeping uncles lie,” said Clifford. “What we’ve got to do is to devise a plan to alleviate our desperate existence. Can’t any one think of anything?” ”

“ If we had had more candle, of course, we wouldn’t have given up like that; but it is easier to sit in the velvet dark if you know you can light it up whenever you choose, than to have no candle ends left for emergencies.
We explained this to Madeline so often, that I think in the end she began to understand that there might be something in it.
And after a very long, dark time, when our ears had got quite stiff inside with listening to hear if any one was shouting to us from the hole, Alan suddenly said: “I see alight—sunlight, I think. Let’s go to it—perhaps it’s another way out.” ”

“ This was what we once did to her, though very sorry for it afterwards.
“I think some noble task would help us most,” said Olive, taking no notice of Madeline. “I shall buy some blue wool and knit him some bed-socks—in two shades.”
“My only comfort,” said Clifford, “is that my collars won’t hold out. Three a day isn’t what they’ve been used to!”
It is rare indeed for an uncle to notice what you have got on. Aunts are more observative.
“I suppose it’s being tidy himself,” said Olive. He was tidy; more so than I have ever seen any one in human shape. ”

“ It would be. Life is like that.
We looked at each other, and at the ruins of that once happy hat and hall and hat-stand. And we heard the Serious Sergeants clapping one of the addressers, We never knew which.
“Oh,” said Madeline, “I can’t bear it! Let’s hide till he’s got over it a little.”
“We ought to face the music,” said Clifford, who wishes to be a conscientious hero.
“We needn’t face it yet,” said Alan. “Wait till the Serious Sergeants have gone.”
“Let's fly,” said Olive. ”

“ Clifford caught Madeline’s arm. “Back!” he cried—“back to the dog-hole! They aren’t human aid: they’re cave-dwellers!”
We all backed for all we were worth, but we couldn’t find the dog-hole—of course. But there was an arch, and-the roof or the sides or something had fallen in and made a mound that nearly reached the roof. We climbed up on this, and lay flat on the top of the mound under the roof. ”

“ So when the fell plague had become known, and the others were put to bed, Olive and Alan and Madeline and the present author were sent off at once to stay with our uncle at Chislehurst, a spot we had never before visited. He was a newish uncle, having but recently retired from the army (artillery) , in which, and in India, he had spent most of his manhood’s prime. Uncles who have been in the army are more difficult to please than the plain kind of uncle. Accustomed as they are to the unquestioning obedience of their regiments, they jump down your throat if you do the least thing. ”

“ They were as fierce as they could possibly be, and wore hardly any clothes—only beast-skins. They were all like this except the villa-dwellers, who are quite different, and just like other people. That is all the instructive part; we now come to the narrative.
I will begin by saying that I am Clifford, and there are four others, not counting Madeline, who is but a mere cousin, and not really one of us. The other names are Olive, Alan, Martin, and Laura. I never can see that it is any use telling people’s names if you don’t at once tell what they are like. ”

“ For of course they would never let any one out who could tell the people outside about how the long-lost cave-dwellers still subsisted in their primitive way, unknown to the police, and most likely living by secret burglary when people were asleep in their beds.
You cannot look down when you are lying on your back on the top of a mound. ”

“ Only what happened is exactly what you are expecting, so why waste pages and pages in working you up to it, as if I was a grown-up author? The plainest words are the best, as some great author beautifully observes. ”