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101
and flung everyone into the mud and the governess fainted, no one was
hurt.
Fortunately one of the Irish exiles, Thomas O'Meagher, whp was
living in Ro ss, strode along the road and joined in the rescue of the
dishevelled party. O'Meagher , a tall, good-looking young man in his
t\-Jenties and a friend of O'Doherty , became friendly with the Hall fami ly
too and later described the doctor :
No Protestant Bible movement was ever started in the colony
but the worthy doctor, putting on his spectacles, followed on
its track. A dozen letters , pointed and barbed with the
deadliest texts, tough with passages from Jerome and
Tertullian and winged with the spirit of a Templar, went
whizzing after the chairman and every other speaker on the
occasion through the columns of some highly independent
journal . On Sundays he walked to Mass at the head of his
numerous family with an illuminated volume of hymns and
meditations bound in brass and brown velvet in one hand,
and a black walking stick, embellished with the head of
St . Dunstan in ivory in the other . 4
On February 22, 1851 , Catherine and O'Meagher were married by Willson in
Hall's drawing room.
It was a gay , happy affair , with the bridegroom
resplendent iri a green velvet coat with gold buttons .
O'Meagher built
a small stone cottage, uthe fairy cottageu , on the shore of Lake Sorell
to which he took his bride, accompanied by Mary Jane who stayed for some
time with them .
As always , religion played an important part in their life in
Ro ss.
For the first twelve months Hall continued to act as Treasurer
to the Catholic Mission at Oatlands for the building of St . Paul 's until
its completion.
Every two weeks Father Bond from Oatlands visited Ross
to celebrate Mass for the female prisoners in one of the large wards ,
until the chapel , built for the joint use of Protestants and Catho lics ,
was .finished.
Hall _
and his family attended Mass at the Ross Police
Station together with the male prisoners , the soldiers , and the residents
of the district.
As time passed, personal distress, anger and excitement , all
affected the Hall household .
Twice in one winter the Macquari e River
overflowed its banks and flooded the house so
that Hall was obliged to
get men from the convict station to bale it out, a service to himself as
a private citizen which he specially noted in his diary, a copy of which
he sent to the Comptro ller-General each week .
4
O'Meagher Papers , NS 23/5.