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.