JOHN MINTO 337
ear and tried in vain to rouse him. The speaker saw that something serious had happened to Mr. Minto, and adjourned the House immediately. We wheeled him rapidly to an open window, opened his cravat and collar, called in a doctor from the Senate our own two of the House being absent and in a few minutes there was a sign of returning consciousness. He looked about him quietly a moment and then said: "Am I the cause of this disturbance, gentlemen?" A little later: "If this were passing, surely no man need dread it !"
Allen Eaton and I took him home, and when we arrived there attempted to assist him up the steps of Douglas Minto's house; but not he! "Let me alone, I can get on all right by myself!" And he went sturdily up the steps and bowed his thanks to us courteously from the landing.
Though we might have foreseen that his davs were num- bered, the news of his death, a few days after the adjourn- ment, was a shock to the whole commonwealth. A throng filled the spacious hall where the last words were said over him, a touching tribute to his memory being offered by his devoted friend, Judge D'Arcy. Death left upon his counte- nance an ineffable dignity and beauty. He was buried in the old pioneer cemetery beneath the oaks he loved and the tall laurel trees, still green, though it was February.
I walked alone in the sunset up the beautiful path through the park to the Statehouse ; fed the leaping trout in the foun- tain, as we two had often fed them; went into the silent halls where every step resounded, sat a moment in the chair he commonly occupied when he came thither, and thanked God as I walked back alone amid the darkening shadows of the trees, through which the winter stars were shining, that it had been my unspeakable privilege to be the friend of John Minto.
JOHN GILL.
