This description comes when Heck Tate and Atticus are getting the full story from Scout. Atticus remarks that Bob Ewell must be crazy, but the sheriff doesn't agree.
"-Wasn't crazy, mean as hell. Low-down skunk with enough liquor in him to make him brave enough to kill children. He'd never have met you face to face."
But Atticus, in his infinite kindness, doesn't understand this. He thinks that surely someone would have to be mentally unstable to do something like attack children. Heck Tate tries explaining it a different way.
Mr. Finch, there's just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to 'em. Even then, they ain't worth the bullet it takes to shoot 'em. Ewell 'as one of them."
Essentially, Mr. Tate is saying some men are just no good, & there's nothing that will change them. Bob Ewell was one of those men. His attack on the children was cowardly to begin with, & staging it in the dark made it even more so. Scout doesn't quite understand this yet, & her ideas about the attack are all mixed up. She thinks it was Jem, not Boo, who pulled Bob off of her. Even though Jem had already been knocked down & had his arm broken, she thinks "Jem must have got up, I guess."
When Scout realizes it was Boo Radley who had helped she & Jem, she finds herself suddenly in tears. These are what blurs her image of him: tears for somone who could kind enough to escape his personal prison and help 2 children.
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