THOMAS ASSHETON SMITH. 191 



use of stimulants and by the assiduous attention of Mrs. 

 Smith, at this period herself in a very weak state of 

 health, was so far subdued that on one of his horses 

 saddled appearing at the door although five minutes 

 before he had been gasping for breath on the sofa he 

 mounted the animal, and broke away, as if instinctively, 

 to seek for himself a stronger stimulant than his physician 

 could prescribe the, sight once again of his hounds. 



" Although," writes Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, very feelingly, " he 

 rallied from this attack in an astonishing manner, he was no longer 

 the same man. ,The erect gait was bent, and the eagle eye had lost 

 its lustre." 



The able writer of ' Silk and Scarlet ' gives the following 

 graphic and affecting description of Tom Smith the last 

 time he appeared at the meet with his hounds : 



" The covert side knew him no more after the October of 1857, 

 when he just cantered up to Willbury on his chestnut hack Blemish, 

 to see his hounds draw. Carter got his orders to bring the choicest 

 of the 1858 entry, and he and Will Bryce arrived at the usual 

 rendezvous with five couple of bitches by the Fitzwilliam Hard- 

 wicke and Hermit. He looked at them a short time, and exclaimed, 

 ' WELL, THEY 'BE AS BEAUTIFUL AS THEY CAN BE,' bade both his 

 men good-bye, and they saw him no more." 



He returned to Tedworth as usual 



" 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 



