Dr. Smith kept word in regard to the beating-up of subscribers. After indefatigable exertions, and by almost forcing his poor patients, lay and clerical, to take a poetical prospectus together with their pills, he succeeded in getting a couple of hundred names to the subscription list. He carried the paper in triumph to Northborough; but was again received in a cold and apathetic manner. Clare expressed no pleasure whatever on hearing that there was now a good prospect of bringing out his new volume. He scarcely listened to what the doctor said, and kept on interrupting him every minute with remarks of his own on biblical subjects. 'Is not this Book of Job a wonderful poem--one of the most wonderful elegies ever written?' he asked again and again. Dr. Smith was somewhat surprised; the man of science had never been thinking much about the Book of Job, and, perhaps, knew it only by repute. He looked Clare steadfastly in the face; but the latter averted the glance, bonding over the papers before him. 'Shall I read to you some of my verses?' he inquired, after a pause. The doctor willingly consented, and Clare began declaiming his paraphrase of the 38th chapter of Job:--
'Then God, half angered, answered Job aright, Out of the whirlwind and the darkening storm--'
When he had finished reading, with tremulous voice, the last lines, scarcely altered from the text:--
'And who provides The raven with his food--His young ones cry To God, and wander forth for lack of meat'--
Clare burst out crying, hiding his face in his hands. The medical man got alarmed, and went out to see Mrs. Clare. He asked her whether she had observed anything unusual about her husband of late; in fact, words or doings betoking mental disorder. She replied that she had not noticed anything, except his being unusually silent and reserved, and utterly disinclined to leave the house. Thereupon both went into Clare's room, and found that he had overcome his sudden burst of grief, and was looking out of the window. He now entered freely into conversation with the doctor, betraying not the slightest sign of incoherent thought or reflection. Thanking his friend for all his kindness in getting subscribers for the intended volume of poems, he told him that he was going to write immediately to London, and make arrangements for the publication of the book. The doctor then left, promising to call again.