JOSEPH HAWELL, A SKIDDAW SHEPHERD.
Did you know Joseph Hawell of Lonscale?
Nearly everybody within sight of Skiddaw did, and knew him to honour him and to speak well of him.
Not a ram-show nor a Herdwick prize show, not a clipping feast nor shepherd's meeting, but 'kenned' Joseph Hawell; and of later years most of the 'Yellow' or Conservative meetings in the district had seen his manly form and heard his manly words in what he used to call 'the national cause.' For Joseph Hawell was a Conservative and a Unionist; 'thoro'-bred' he used to say, for his father and his mother had felt as he did in matters political, and he thought 'they had mixed a laal bit yaller wid his poddish' when he was a boy. At any rate he would have liked well enough to have branded his fleecy Skiddaw darlings with the words 'For King and Country,' and used a yellow 'dip' if such had been in existence.
I knew his old father—him of Longlands in Uldale—later of Lonscale; and a better informed man, a man, that is, better read in the news of the day, was hardly to be found in the farm-houses round Keswick. So like Dean Stanley of Westminster he was in face that I would introduce him to my friends as 'the Dean,' and by his side, as he 'cracked' on the things of state, sat usually one of the sweetest-faced, gentlest-natured of women, his good wife, whose maiden name was Jane Walker, of Stockdale. They had married in the 'fifties' of last century, and she had borne him five children—John, Jane (who died in girlhood), Robert, Joseph, and Ann.
Joseph was a Christmas present to the old oak cradle at Longlands Farm, for he was born on the 24th December, 1854; and he grew up, with John and Robert, to be as passionately fond of sheep as his father. Never a boy for books much at school, he still as a youngster was ever fond of helping on the Fell, and of training the shepherd's dogs; and rare training he had himself.
His father had, from a present of ten gimmer lambs, given him by his father when he was a young man, reared up quite a fine race of the blackfaced Herdwicks, and was, by the time the lads could bear him company, flockmaster of 500 sheep on Frozen Fell and Wylie Ghyll, and of 300 in the Forest, as it is called—the great heathery waste in the basin at the back of Skiddaw.
Joseph grew up strong and lusty as a shepherd should grow, and together with his brothers, took to wrestling as all shepherds in Cumberland ought to do; but the lads, as they grew up, became so fond of the sheep and so devoted to their father, that as soon as he, seeing that they were likely to be drawn into the ring, and to lose some of their interest in the Herdwick sheep, begged them to give up the wrestling, they gave it up; and henceforth these brothers' one aim in life seemed to be how they could most help their father to improve the Herdwick breed, and maintain his honour as a shepherd.
In 1869 the family migrated from Uldale to the secluded farm on Col. Watson's estate, between Lonscale and Saddleback; and what success the Hawells, father and sons, obtained as breeders of pure Herdwicks can be seen by any who will call to-day at the Farm, and ask to be shown the prizes and cards that literally cover the walls from floor to ceiling.
The old man, who had struggled with storm on Skiddaw through his laborious life, failed in health, suffered as shepherds often do from terrible rheumatism, and was troubled with asthma. At last he felt obliged to leave the ingle-nook and take to his bed upstairs; but his love of the shepherd's life was still so strong upon him that a few days before he died he insisted on seeing one of the prize Herdwick rams, and the sons had a tough job to get it to 'clim' the 'stee' and stand in the presence of the dying man. The old man felt death coming upon him shortly after, but he told those who watched they need not trouble to fetch the doctor, as he knew his hour had come, and he was ready to 'gang' home.
I wrote this sonnet at the time of his death:
The sheep are bleating in the fell-side field,
The kine call sadly from the homestead near,
But thou art far away, thou dost not hear.
A greater Shepherd, for thy feet, doth wield
The rod that thro' the vale of death can yield
Sole comfort. Round thy bed and round thy bier
The trophies of thy hand in letters clear,
Speak; but we speak not: grief our lips has sealed.
Farewell, where Glenderaterra pours apace
Rich music from her thousand upland springs!
Thy name, old friend, the Lonscale streamlet sings;
King-Shepherd thou of Skiddaw's fleecy race;
And still in memory we behold thy face,
Lined by laborious morns and evenings.
And on the headstone in Greystoke churchyard, that records Edward Hawell's burial, may be seen the following lines:
Here lies a simple shepherd, one who strove
To leave behind a fairer, fuller flock;
Lead him, Great Master Shepherd, in thy love,
To wells of life from the Eternal Rock!
Before he died he had the comfort of seeing Joseph wedded to as good a daughter-in-law as ever lived. It was but in keeping with the whole life of the household that Joseph should have first met Margaret Roberts at the Gillbanks' clipping. The love for all time that first began at the shearing, went on smoothly till that other Master of the Shears, one men call Death, cut so cruelly the knot that Love in this life had tied. Married in 1886, Joseph was happy as man could be; he was blessed with a son John, and a daughter Sarah Jane.
With plenty of work on the Fells by day for himself, his brother, and his men to do, he yet found time to study at night. He took to politics as his father before him had taken to them, and, having gained confidence in public speaking, he worked hard at his speeches and the preparing of them.
Of books he had not many but good; and he specially delighted in biographies and history. He never tired of reading of the Spacious Times of Great Elizabeth, the History of Wellingtons Wars, or of Nelson's Exploits; and when the Royal Jubilee and Armada Tercentenary came round, no stronger hand or more willing heart was found in the whole neighbourhood to build up the huge bonfire stack on Skiddaw top than Joseph Hawell's. As I write I can see him, the perspiration streaming down his honest face, building away with the peats, and handing up the paraffin, bucket by bucket; and hoping, as he told us then, there was not a man in canny Cumberland but would feel the fiery glow of a patriot's heart that night.
But he will never help us on Skiddaw top more; and never, alas, shall we go to the shepherds' meeting in Wylie Ghyll with him again, or see him at the ram fair, or hear him at a 'yaller' speech day, or sit with him at his own fireside and 'crack' on about the Herdwicks.
It is thought that influenza laid its deadly hand upon him early in the year 1891, and simultaneously he had some ailment of the gums—toothache he called it. It must have been something more serious; he went off to Keswick to see the doctor: the doctor lanced the gum, but the wound took bad ways, and within a day or so the strong man was in bed, weak and delirious.
He wished to be up and after the sheep. Must be about his father's business! And, on a cold Spring day, Friday, February 20th, an angel came to the lonely farmstead of Lonscale, to bid the brave man's spirit fare the way that all who really wish to do that Heavenly Father's business must go uncomplainingly. And still Joseph Hawell's heart was where it had ever been—at home in England. He thought that some strange hands were taking him away by force to another land, and the last words that he spoke were these:
'No! if I must die, I will at least die an Englishman on English ground!' And so he died.
The strong hand of one stronger than man had taken him; and in a few days more, on February 23rd, hands tender and strong, the hands of an affectionate brother and true friends, bore the body of a shepherd, dead in his prime—for he was but 36 years old—down through the cow-pasture and over the gurgling Glenderaterra, and so through the silent Brundholme woods above the wailing Greta away to its rest in English earth beneath the shadow of the old church of St. Kentigern, in the Crosthwaite valley, within sight of that horned hill of Skiddaw he had loved so well. The people of Keswick begged that his body might be carried through their sorrowful town that opportunity might be given of showing sympathy and respect. And many a stalwart yeoman came to the Homegoing. Little they said, but they felt much as they moved in their dark market-carts toward the burial.
'Eh, but what! it's a terrible loss for us all!' 'The best man amang us gone.' 'We all mun ga when t' time comes, but it's hard bearing is this.' 'Niver a handier man wi' t' sheep i' t' whoale forest.' 'Niver a better man clim't t' fell; a decent, stiddy man as iver was; niver heard a wrang word from him.' 'Eh, but! it's past finding out t' way young uns goes, and auld ones stays.' 'Poor lass, she's lost as good a mate as ever woman had.' 'Poor barns, they've lost a fadder afore they kent him.' And so sorrowfully they turned away from the grave, whereon flowers had been strewn and wreaths laid by hands of men who in their common regret forgot all party differences and thought only of Joseph Hawell, as a man the 'Blues and Yellows' were alike proud of in life, and alike determined to honour in death.
I was a traveller in foreign lands when the news of Joseph Hawell's death reached me, and I felt for a moment stunned. As I realised it, it seemed to me as if I did not care to see Skiddaw again. He was a piece of it; and Skiddaw without him would be no Skiddaw at all, such an ideal yeoman shepherd; so tender-hearted to the yeanlings; so true to his mountain flock; such a man among men, honest and upright, reliable; one always knew somehow that if Joe was present, men right and left of him would behave like gentlemen; so high-minded and bent on the 'Just and True'; and, 'as the great ones only are, in his simplicity sublime.' His influence was wider and deeper than he had dreamed of, and I felt that with Joe Hawell a power that had worked for righteousness in a whole fell-side community, had passed as far as visible form goes from the earth.
On reaching home, it was with a sad heart that I neared the solitary fell-side farm that had been so darkened with loss. There was the same kitchen; the fiddle was on the wall; the bacon flitches hung from the rafter; the stuffed heads of the two old favourite shepherd dogs, 'Dainty' and 'Rob,' looked out from under the triumphal arch of sickles from the wall; the gun rested close by; the medicine horn and lambing bottle were in their places, and the old row of books that the father and he had so often turned to for thought and inspiration, were in their shelf—but there was no Joe! Robert took me by the hand and bade me sit on the settle, and he would tell me all about it. The poor wife said nothing, but just rose quietly and began to spread the table and set on tea, and when I urged that I would not have her fash herself so or put herself out of the way for me, she urged that it would have been Joe's wish, and I said no more.
Then the dogs came in. 'Ah,' said Robert, 't' rough un, "Jess," has not forgitten her master yet. She was sair put out o' t' way when my brother lay ill, whined at nights and would not be comforted; and she has only just now, after ten weeks' coaxing, consented to follow me when I go to the Fell.'
JOSEPH HAWELL.
'And did you have no thought of Joseph's worsening,' I said, 'when he took ill?'
'No,' said Robert, 'but rather a strange thing happened just a week before. I am not superstitious, and I said little about it. But I woke early just as it was beginning to be dawn and saw a sad face looking upon me. I knew the face well, it was Joe's wife's sister, and I thought I was dreaming and sat up, and the face still looked very sadly and then faded away, and I felt it must be a vision. I have wondered since if it was meant as a token to us. She was the first person, however, that came to help us when Joe died. It is singular, is it not? Eh dear! but it's a sair heart that I have as I go shepherding now; for it's when I'm amang t' sheep I mostly what seem to miss him. It comes ower me t' warst when I am looking at t' ewes that we used to talk ower together. You would like to see some of the letters, I daresay, we received when poor Joe went.' And saying this, the stalwart man, who loved his brother as tenderly as a woman, put a bundle of letters into my hand.
'But,' said I, as I gave back these precious documents to the owner, 'did he not leave any papers behind him? He is spoken of in one letter as gifted beyond ordinary measure as a public speaker.'
'Well,' replied the brother, 'he left very little in writing; but you know we kept his speeches. They are scattered up and down the newspapers.' And following into the Herdwick-prize room, I soon found myself deep in the speeches Joseph Hawell had from time to time delivered in the political cause he championed.
I asked if he took much trouble in the preparing of his speeches, and I was told that he did; worked hard for nights beforehand, and sometimes, as our greater orators have done, learned a bit of his intended speech by heart. Joseph had as library, up there in the rafter-smoke, some old 17th and 18th century tomes, full of the breath of English spoken pure. English history was his chief study; but 'here,' said the good wife sadly, 'is a book he oft read in, particularly on Sunday afternoons.' It was a magnificent folio copy of The Whole Duty of Man, The Gentleman's Calling, The Art of Contentment, and The Christian Birthright, printed by Norton, at Oxford, in 1695. As I turned over its well-thumbed pages I thought that Joseph Hawell had gone to good models for his masterful English, and had drunk wholesome draughts of goodly thought and wisdom as he studied.
'Did he leave no other written papers?'
'Yes, he left a few songs he wrote from time to time.'
I asked to see them. 'God Save Ireland from Disunion,' was the title of one; another, in rough copy, was a sheep-shearing song.
Had Joseph written anything else? Yes; there was just one letter or two he had left behind him in rough copy, and I was welcome to see them if I cared. I did care; and was rewarded.
He had latterly been a bit troubled in his mind by a friend who had what are called 'free-thinking notions.' And Joe, who was as dead against that kind of cant as any religious cant—and he was, as I can testify, hard upon this latter—had delivered his soul.
The letter was written on February 9th, 1891, and the hand that wrote it was cold and stiff on February 20th. I dare to look upon this letter as the yeoman shepherd's last will and testament. It runs as follows:
'DEAR FRIEND,—I have received your books, and am much obliged. I have not yet got them read thoroughly, but so far they have but caused a reaction in my mind in favour of the Christian religion, and led me to have recourse to some fine old books written more than a hundred years ago, in a bold and intelligent hand, proving that astronomy and science are a powerful proof of the might and majesty of an Almighty Creator.
'Could you follow up your science by winging your way to the highest star of observation, you would there see other skies expanded and other planets and systems established, each giving harmony and perfection of attention to time by the nicest rule. Then wend your way past other ten thousand worlds, and at the end of this vast tour you would still be muddling in the suburbs of creation, only to find that no imagination can fix the limits of His creating hand, and that conceited, ignorant, and insignificant man is absolutely unable to comprehend the grandeur and correctness of His magnificent workmanship. Then am I to be told that the builder of this stupendous structure is incapable of such a paltry performance as taking possession of our souls and restoring our lifeless bodies at His own good will and pleasure?
'I find,' he adds, 'Carlyle's work very instructive, and many of the passages furnish evidence of the existence of the great Disposer of all events.'
I said this should stand as Joseph Hawell's last will and testament. No; there was another letter, written evidently just at the end of last year, in which he begs of a neighbour the loan of a horse and gear to enable him to bring down on a sledge from Lonscale Crag one of the finest single stones there. He wishes to set it up in some field on the farm, and have his father's name upon it and his father's deeds and prowess as a breeder of Herdwick sheep, with a single verse of descriptive poetry beneath, and he feels sure that his friend will lend a hand 'to erect a monument to at least one member of the Hawell family whose stainless, honourable, and straightforward life will always be pointed to with pride by his descendants.'
Joseph Hawell! the horses have gone, and the sledge has brought its heavy burden to the home-farm; and on it are engraved two names instead of one, for there are those who honour the son who would so have honoured his sire. There by that mountain path they both of them knew so well of old is the grey memorial cross set, and on it is carved, in symbol of eternity, the endless knot their Norse forefathers used. A simple verse is engraved at the base.
Those who pass the 'gale' for the meadows of Lonscale, to breast the back of Blencathra, or to climb the slopes of Skiddaw, shall surely learn that our Cumberland mountains still as of old breed men of high purpose and noble endeavour; and that still, from following the sheep, God calls His chosen ones by lives of kindliness, simplicity, and straightforward goodness, to guide their brothers in the path of duty, righteousness, and truth.