They baffled him, for he expected them to like learning, and never could make out why one and all treated him as an enemy when he wanted to teach them their lessons.
Years ago he had come a very young man, to be schoolmaster at Wyncliffe, full of grand plans, and thinking to make good scholars of at least some among his pupils. He might well have found out, long since, what a hopeless task it was; but when I went to school, he was working away, still eager, still hopeful, forever being disappointed, but never quite losing heart.
However, if he did not know how to keep order in the school—and some people said he did not—I verily believe he knew everything else in the world.
He was an Antiquary, I have often heard Mrs. Janet say, and a Botanist, and a Geologist, and an Astronomer. The words sounded so very grand as Mrs. Janet rolled them slowly out, that I recollected them all, though I had not the least idea what any of them meant.
'He's too book-learned for us, that's where it is,' the great men of the parish sometimes said, shaking their heads wisely. Yet they were fond of him and proud of him all the same.
Mrs. Janet shook her head too. She would fain have ruled Master Caleb's scholars for him, as when he was a little boy she used to rule himself. It was pain and grief to her to sit idle in the parlour, and know that 'the boy' was letting things go their own way too much in the school.
Not that he always did so by any means. The boys said they never knew what he would be at, for they found themselves brought to justice now and then when they were least looking for it. There was a boyish corner in his own heart, staid, quaint, and learned as he was, that gave him a secret fellow-feeling for Cuthbert's love of roaming, and I guessed that he was oftentimes the hardest upon him when he was most tempted to let him off altogether.
With the youngest class of all—a helpless cluster of tiny boys and girls, who were only sent to school because they were in the way at home, he was at all events tireless and gentle. Very tenderly he guided the fat forefingers to point along the lines, helped the lisping baby tongues over the hard words, and never lost patience with the blue, wondering, foolish eyes that could see no difference between A and Z.
It was when he turned back to the first class, great boys who could learn and wouldn't learn, that the puzzled, worried look we all knew well came across his face. I think the reason he was so good to me was that I really liked to learn.
So he lent me books, and took me for long walks across the hills. Wonderful walks they were—very different from the headlong way Cuthbert went across the country. Master Caleb carried a hammer with him to chip off bits of rock, and a trowel to dig up out-of-the-way plants, and a big basket to carry what he called his specimens. He loved the beautiful earth with a great reverent love.