"But," writes Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, "at the annual meet on the
1st of November, 1857, the hounds met without the accustomed
centre figure of their master, who slowly rode up to them
without his scarlet. He remarked, quite seriously, that if he
had worn his hunting gear, and his pack should observe that
he could not follow them, they would show their sorrow by
refusing to hunt the fox. A universal gloom pervaded the field;
he looked wistfully and lovingly at his old favourites, the
heroes of many a well-fought field; and as he quickly went back
into the hall, shrinking almost from the outer air, while the
horsemen and pack turned away slowly towards the shrubberies,
every one felt with a heavy heart that the glory of the old
fox-hunter had at length departed."
The state of Mrs. Smith's health having for many years caused her
husband great anxiety, in 1845, in order, as he said, "to bring
Madeira to England," he constructed for her at Tedworth a magnificent
conservatory or crystal palace, 315 feet in length and 40 in width,
in which, enjoying the temperature of a warm climate, she might take
walking exercise during the winter months. A Wiltshire farmer, on first
seeing this building, observed, he supposed it was for the 'Squire to
hunt there whenever a frost stopped him in the field.
"It was a melancholy spectacle," writes Sir J. Eardley Wilmot,
"to see Tom Smith the winter before his death, when he
could no longer join his hounds, mount one of his favourite
hunters--Euxine, Paul Potter, or Blemish--with the assistance
of a chair, and take his exercise for an hour at a foot's
pace up and down this conservatory, often with some friend
at his side to cheer him up and while away the time until he
re-entered the house, for he was not allowed at that period
to go out of doors. Even in this feeble condition, '_quantùm
mutatus ab illo Hectore_,' once on horseback, he appeared to
revive; and the dexterity and ease with which he managed, like
a plaything, the spirited animal under him, which had scarcely
left its stable for months, was most surprising."
During the last days of his existence he rested rather than took
exercise on that noble animal the horse, which for seventy years he
had so resolutely and yet so considerately governed. His mind, in its
declining hours, had also its support. Throughout his life, without
ostentation and often in secret, he had been charitable to people
of various conditions. Of the two thousand workmen in his quarries,
scarcely one of them had ever been taken before a magistrate for
dishonesty. Never was he known, if properly requested, to refuse to
give a site for a church or even for a Dissenting chapel. Both he and
Mrs. Smith invariably went to church on foot, it being a rule with them
never, except in case of illness, to have either carriage or horse out
on Sundays.
A few weeks after he had completed his eighty-second year he had a
sudden attack of the same symptoms which had shaken him so severely in
1856. In a moment of consciousness, evidently aware of his approaching
end, pointing to his faithful valet, he said to his devoted wife,
"_Take care of that man!_" and when Mrs. Smith left the room, he said
to her maid, "_Watch over your mistress; take care of +her+._" A few
hours afterwards--
"Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history"
on the 9th of September, 1858, while Mrs. Smith's sister was watching
by his bedside, a slight change came over his countenance, but before
the doctors or even his valet could be summoned,--with a gentle
sigh expired Thomas Assheton Smith, bequeathing, on half a sheet of
writing-paper, the whole of his vast possessions, producing from
50,000_l._ to 55,000_l._ a year, to his widow (who survived him only
a few months); and moreover leaving behind him a name that will long
be remembered not only by the farmers and riding men of the counties
he hunted, but by all who are disposed fairly and justly to appreciate
the lights and shadows which constitute the character of "The English
Country Gentleman," one only of whose recreations we have endeavoured
to delineate to our readers in the foregoing slight sketches of those
three gallant animals--the +Horse+, the +Fox+, and last, though not
least, the +Foxhunter+.
[Illustration: THE ROYAL ENGINEER TRAIN PRACTISING LASSO DRAUGHT.