"Nobody cares," said poor Mrs Frog, one raw afternoon in November, as
she entered her miserable dwelling, where the main pieces of furniture
were a rickety table, a broken chair, and a heap of straw, while the
minor pieces were so insignificant as to be unworthy of mention. There
was no fire in the grate, no bread in the cupboard, little fresh air in
the room and less light, though there was a broken unlighted candle
stuck in the mouth of a quart bottle which gave promise of light in the
future--light enough at least to penetrate the November fog which had
filled the room as if it had been endued with a pitying desire to throw
a veil over such degradation and misery.
We say degradation, for Mrs Frog had of late taken to "the bottle" as a
last solace in her extreme misery, and the expression of her face, as
she cowered on a low stool beside the empty grate and drew the shred of
tartan shawl round her shivering form, showed all too clearly that she
was at that time under its influence. She had been down to the river
again, more than once, and had gazed into its dark waters until she had
very nearly made up her mind to take the desperate leap, but God in
mercy had hitherto interposed. At one time a policeman had passed with
his weary "move on"--though sometimes he had not the heart to enforce
his order. More frequently a little baby-face had looked up from the
river with a smile, and sent her away to the well-known street where she
would sit in the familiar door-step watching the shadows on the
window-blind until cold and sorrow drove her to the gin-palace to seek
for the miserable comfort to be found there.
Whatever that comfort might amount to, it did not last long, for, on the
night of which we write, she had been to the palace, had got all the
comfort that was to be had out of it, and returned to her desolate home
more wretched than ever, to sit down, as we have seen, and murmur,
almost fiercely, "Nobody cares."
For a time she sat silent and motionless, while the deepening shadows
gathered round her, as if they had united with all the rest to intensify
the poor creature's woe.