Mrs Frog sinks Deeper and Deeper.
“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.
Presently she began to mutter to herself aloud—
“What’s the use o’ your religion when it comes to this? What sort of religion is in the hearts of these,” (she pursed her lips, and paused for an expressive word, but found none), “these rich folk in their silks and satins and broadcloth, with more than they can use, an’ feedin’ their pampered cats and dogs on what would be wealth to the likes o’ me! Religion! bah!”
She stopped, for a Voice within her said as plainly as if it had spoken out: “Who gave you the sixpence the other day, and looked after you with a tender, pitying glance as you hurried away to the gin-shop without so much as stopping to say ‘Thank you’? She wore silks, didn’t she?”
“Ah, but there’s not many like that,” replied the poor woman, mentally, for the powers of good and evil were fighting fiercely within her just then.
“How do you know there are not many like that?” demanded the Voice.