Mary, walking near the cart, began to feel a curious weakness creep over her. No pain, only a weakness in every joint. Alarmed at the long absence of their mother, two of the oldest girls hurried back, and found her seated by the roadside unable to proceed another step. They assisted her to rise, and half carried her up the hill to the tents. She whispered to them to put her in bed in the cart where she always slept. They did so. But she grew weaker and weaker. She would faint entirely away, then slowly come back, and wonder feebly what was the matter, and why they all stood around so. Then faint away again, and so on all night. At last Jane remembered her mother had a little consecrated oil packed away, and she searched among the boxes till she found it. They administered to her then, and she revived some. But begged to be taken away from that place.
Her husband felt she might die if he did not comply with her wish, so they started immediately for Yass river. They were traveling along, when Mary's horse gave out. She was obliged then to wait for her husband to return, and get her. She felt much better, and thought she could get out and walk about a little. So she directed the young man who drove her cart to let down the shafts. She got out, but the moment she went to rest her feet on the ground, she fell to the earth. The young man assisted her into the cart again, and then for three months she never stood upon her feet. There was no pain whatever, only an extreme weakness.
While camping on the Yass river the next evening, Mary had a dream which when related sounds like the history of her life for the following twenty years; so true is it in every particular.
She dreamed that she saw herself and her family, traveling, struggling and trying to get a start again. Everything seemed to go against her husband. Sickness came, and she saw herself the only one able to be out of bed. Deadly sickness too, but she was promised that there should be no death. Things seemed to grow blacker and blacker. At last, starvation approached and she saw them all without a morsel of food to eat; everything sold for food, even their clothes. Then when the last remnant of property had been taken from them, the tide turned. She was told they should at last go to Goulburn, where they would break land, and prosperity should once more visit them, and that they should finally reach Zion. The dream was terrible in its reality. She awoke trembling and sobbing, and awaking her husband she told him she had been having a fearful dream.
"I would rather," she added, "have my head severed from my body this minute, than go through what I have dreamed this night."
"Well, wife," answered William, "let us hope it is nothing but a dream."
She related it to him, but he felt too confident in his own strength to believe such a dream as that. It gradually faded from Mary's mind as such things will do, but now and then some circumstance would recall it to her mind with all the vividness of reality.
While camping on the Yass, a stranger came to William and asked him for his daughter Maria, who was then only fourteen years old. William replied that Maria was nothing but a child, and he was an utter stranger, so he could not for a moment think of consenting. Three nights after this, the man stole the girl away, and when morning came and the father discovered the loss, he was almost frantic with grief. He was a most devoted and affectionate father, and he was fairly beside himself with his daughter's disappearance. He spent money like water. Advertised, went from place to place, searched and hired others to search with him, for the missing girl. It was of no use. She was never found.
While searching for her four of his horses wandered away, and only one ever returned. Then, finally giving up in despair, he hired horses and went to Yass city. Arriving there William obtained work for a man named Gallager, at putting up a barn.
They had been settled but a short time when the baby was prostrated with colonial fever. Mary did all she could, but the child grew worse. Four months went by and still there was no improvement. At last Mary persuaded her husband to get a doctor. The doctor came and told the mother there was one chance in a hundred of the baby's life. No signs of life seemed left in the little body, but he ordered her to put a strong mustard poultice over the stomach. "If it raises a blister," said he, "she will live. If not, she is dead."