Damien here. (I'm using the office PC so it looks like Fay is writing.)
Malcolm is right, the version I do is from Bob Davenport via my dad. I learnt it from memory of my Dad singing it at our folk club best part of 20 years ago so the lyrics may have changed a bit and I've more than likely made some of it up.
The tune is the same but his version was a walze.
I haven't heard anyone else do it and I don't really know any more..sorry.
I've pasted the lyrics below (again, they may have changed since I recorded and I don't have a copy of FF to hand.
Cheers, Damien
It was on one pleasant evening I from my home did stray. Down to some lonesome meadows where the lambs to sport and play. Times were bad there was little work and so my dog and me. Set out to catch a hare or two, to feed my family.
Well, me and my dog we hadn't been gone so very far down the lane. When we were stopped dead in our tracks by a man crying out in pain. I rushed up to the plantation through the hedge I forced a gap. And came across a gypsy lad with his leg caught in a trap.
Well I got that lad back to the house and my wife looked at his wound. At first she thought he must be dead for he never made a sound. She quickly got up and she fetched her shawl when he began to moan. She said I'm going to need your mothers help, look after him while I'm gone.
No sooner had she left the house when a knock came at the door. When I got up to answer it two men stood from the law. They pushed their way into the house, saw the lad lying on the hearth stone. Well here's a bit of luck my boys, we've got two for the price of one.
It was at the quarter sessions in Durham we did appear. Where even the gypsy's pleas for me the judge he wouldn't hear. My wife she paled she bit her lip as she heard the judge declare For poaching your both guilty, transport them for seven years.
In shackles we were bound away on a filthy prison ship. That gypsy lad who'd become my pal died on the dreadful ship. Oh, yes I'll serve my sentence but I swear that when I'm free. I'll revenge that lad and everything bad, they did to my family and me.