The dancing began with great spirit, but as the night wore on the music grew monotonous. There were only six tunes in the organ, and not all the skill and energy of Mother Murden could grind one more out of it.
Neddy lay across the doorway, and was never disturbed. He did not wake in time to take any part in the festive scene, being dead. Now and then a few of the dancers stepped over him, and remarked, "Neddy is having a good rest." In the cool night air they walked to and fro, then, returning to the ball-room, they took a little refreshment, and danced to the same old tunes, until they were tired.
Mother Murden's first ball was a grand success for all but Neddy.
"No sleep till morn when youth and pleasure meet,
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet."
But morn reveals unsuspected truths, and wrinkled invisible in the light of tallow candles. The first rays of the rising sun fell on Neddy's ghastly face, and the "conditional pardon" man said, "Why, he's dead and cold."
Mother Murden came to the door with a tumbler in her hand, containing a morning nip for Neddy, "to kill the worm," as the Latins say; but the worm was dead already. The merry-makers stood around; the men looked serious and the ladies shivered. They said the air felt chilly, so they bade one another good morning and hurried home.
It is hard to say why one sinner is taken and the other left. Joshua's time did not arrive until many years afterwards, when we had acquitted him at the General Sessions; but that is another story.
HOW GOVERNMENT CAME TO GIPPSLAND.
At this time there was no visible government in Gippsland. The authorities in Sydney and Melbourne must have heard of the existence of the country and of its settlement, but they were content for a time with the receipt of the money paid into the Treasury for depasturing licenses and for assessments on stock.