“Take care,” whispered Tom; “that daughter of Heale’s may be listening.”

“I’d pull her hair about her ears if I caught her!” quoth Clara; and then ran on to tell how Elsley “never kept no hours, nor no accounts either; so that she has to do everything, poor thing; and no thanks either.  And never knows when he’ll dine, or when he’ll breakfast, or when he’ll be in, wandering in and out like a madman; and sits up all night, writing his nonsense.  And she’ll go down twice and three times a night in the cold, poor dear, to see if he’s fallen asleep; and gets abused like a pickpocket for her pains (which was an exaggeration); and lies in bed all the morning, looking at the flies, and calls after her if his shoes want tying, or his finger aches; as helpless as the babe unborn; and will never do nothing useful himself, not even to hang a picture or move a chair, and grumbles at her if he sees her doing anything, because she ain’t listening to his prosodies, and snaps, and worrits, and won’t speak to her sometimes for a whole morning, the brute.”

“But is he not fond of his children?”

“Fond?  Yes, his way, and small thanks to him, the little angels!  To play with ’em when they’re good, and tell them cock-and-a-bull fairy tales—­wonder why he likes to put such stuff into their heads—­and then send ’em out of the room if they make a noise, because it splits his poor head, and his nerves are so delicate.  Wish he had hers, or mine either, Doctor Thurnall; then he’d know what nerves was, in a frail woman, which he uses us both as his negro slaves, or would if I didn’t stand up to him pretty sharp now and then, and give him a piece of my mind, which I will do, like the faithful servant in the parable, if he kills me for it, Doctor Thurnall!”

“Does he drink?” asked Tom, bluntly.

“He!” she answered, in a tone which seemed to imply that even one masculine vice would have raised him in her eyes.  “He’s not man enough, I think; and lives on his slops, and his coffee, and his tapioca; and how’s he ever to have any appetite, always a sitting about, heaped up together over his books, with his ribs growing into his backbone?—­If he’d only go and take his walk, or get a spade and dig in the garden, or anything but them everlasting papers, which I hates the sight of;” and so forth.

From all which Tom gathered a tolerably clear notion of the poor poet’s state of body and mind; as a self-indulgent, unmethodical person, whose ill-temper was owing partly to perpetual brooding over his own thoughts, and partly to dyspepsia, brought on by his own effeminacy—­in both cases, not a thing to be pitied or excused by the hearty and valiant Doctor.  And Tom’s original contempt for Vavasour took a darker form, perhaps one too dark to be altogether just.

“I’ll tackle him, Miss Clara.”