You'll like to hear it one and all, for what I say is true; The turf is wet upon the bog, the snow is on the farm, You'd better take a wife to bed, she's sure to keep you warm; She will not want for golden chains from any pedlar's pack, When she will have your two strong arms clasped tight around her neck; Believe me, all who hear these words, believe me young and old, 'Tis snug and warm to have a wife when Winter days are cold. (_From an old "Come all ye."_) "Where can I begin and tell everything?" said Fitzgerald, breaking a piece of bread and bringing it up to within an inch of his mouth. "I suppose that night when I was buried in the dug-out will do to start with. 'Twas the devil's own night. I got lost first of all, and me going up with a message to Captain Thorley. 'Twas very important, a mine going up in the morning. So the young German prisoner whom we had taken said. Therefore, our men holding the front line had to retire for safety to the support trenches. So up I goes from Headquarters, running like hell (I'm getting ungrammatically excited, Spudhole) and gets lost. Took the wrong turning, flops into a trench that was full of muck. I stuck there for goodness knows how long, holding on to the piece of paper on which the message was scrawled. I thought I was a permanent fixture, stuck in that trench for duration. But somehow I did get free and eventually found myself in our front line. How I got there I don't know. I mind seeing you, Spudhole." "There was some dirt coming along our way at that time," said Bubb. "'Twas that shell that did it," said Fitzgerald, gazing absently at his piece of bread, which he still held between finger and thumb. "Someone said 'Whoo! There she comes!' and there was a rush for the dug-out. I got mixed up in the scramble and was carried in with the rest. But I still clung on to my message. Then the shell came down on the dug-out and I was out of the doings, just like a gutted sprat. "As far as I can judge I was underground that night, the next day, the night after, and got pulled out the day following at twelve o'clock. Some men of the regiment that relieved us saw a bayonet that stuck up through the roof of the fallen dug-out move as if someone was shaking it." "I saw that 'ere bay'net," said Bubb. "Stickin' up over the roof." "Well, these fellows, when they saw the bayonet wobbling, guessed that someone was alive under the ground, and they began to dig like hell," said Fitzgerald.