THOMAS ASSHETON SMITH. 193 



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 consi- 

 derately governed. His mind, in its declining hours, had 

 also its support. Throughout his life, without osten- 

 tation and often in secret, he had been charitable to 

 people of various conditions. Of the two thousand work- 

 men 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 wile, 

 ^' Take care of that man!''' and when Mrs. Smith leit 

 the room, he said to her maid, " Watch over your mis- 

 tress ; 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 



