why don't you try following code.

#!/bin/bash
logfilepattern="drupal-watchdog.log-201510*.gz"

function getlogcounts {
echo in getlogcounts
echo arg1: "$1"
echo arg2: "$2"

ssh $1 "/bin/bash -c ' cd "$2"; pwd; echo "$logfilepattern" ; for f in "$logfilepattern"; do echo \"\$f\"; done'" 

}

server="[email protected] "
logdir="/var/log/mylogs"
getlogcounts $server $logdir

You can try the following code:

#!/bin/bash logfilepattern="drupal-watchdog.log-201510*.gz" function getlogcounts { echo in getlogcounts echo arg1: "$1" echo arg2: "$2" ssh $1 "/bin/bash -c ' cd "$2"; pwd; echo "$logfilepattern" ; for f in "$logfilepattern"; do echo \"\$f\"; done'" } server="[email protected] " logdir="/var/log/mylogs"  getlogcounts $server $logdir