Of how they stopped the night with us; and don’t I mind it well?
The boree log ablaze “inside,” and gay with rug and mat;
The “front-room,” to the world denied, made snug for Father Pat.
We knew his distant hoof-beats; ay, and grief they could forebode;
So, when we heard a horse go by, clean-stepping down the road,
Round many a log-fire burning bright there passed the word along,
“There’s someone sick and sore the night; I’ll bet that’s Currajong.”
Whereat you’d hear the old men tell—perhaps a trifle add—
Of some sick-call remembered well, when “so-and-so took bad.”
“You couldn’t see your hand in front.” “ ’Twas rainin’ pitchforks, too.”