The road was clear, the moon was up, 'twas but a mile or so;
He got the pack behind him with a chirp and with a chirrup,
And said he, "I had the secret from my gran'dad long ago,
And all the old man left me, Sir, if you should want to know.
"And he was most a gipsy, Sir, and spoke the gipsy lingos,
But he knew of hounds and horses all as NIMROD might have know'd:
When we'd ask him how he did it, he would say, 'You little Gringos,
I learnt it from a lady that I met upon the road;
In the hills o' Connemara was this wondrous gift bestowed.'
"Connemara—County Galway—he was there in 1830;