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High on a hill stood the stately manor where maids and servants fetched and carried, cooks prepared meals of the finest order and a butler moved discreetly about his lordship’s business.
Each morning the footman prepared a coach-and-four in readiness for his master’s visit to the factory where he walked twixt clanging and crashing machines, a handkerchief pressed to his face. As he passed by, his loyal workers would stop for a second and politely tug a forelock of their hair.
Soon It would be time for the annual ball, when the house echoes with the sound of laughter and merry music. Distinguished guests dance and consume copious amounts of food and wine.
The days were good back then.
***
The winter wind whistled through cracks in the crumbling walls and broken windows. Five scruffy urchins played in the dust on the floor as their mother, large with child, struggled with what little food there was with which to feed her family. Hopefully her husband would catch enough rats today to earn a shilling enabling her to buy something to eat tomorrow.
Last week one of their children died. They couldn’t afford a doctor or any medicine. She was buried in a tiny pauper’s grave marked with a small cross of twigs.
Soon their eldest son would be six years old and strong enough to climb inside and sweep the chimneys of the big house on the hill.
The days were dark back then.
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Thanks to Jenne Gray and CEAyr for hosting The Unicorn Challenge.
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A tale of two realities and as old as time. The rich have the poor have not. So sad.
Such is life, Dale.
Indeed.
Cinderella meets Les Mis meets Oliver meets Lady Madonna. Well told, Keith. Grand story!
I see what you mean! Thanks so much, Nancy.
opposite sides of the coin
…and never the twain shall meet.
Powerful piece, Keith, elegantly showing both sides of the great divide.
Sadly it hasn’t changed too much.
It’s not and I fear it never shall.
A sad state of affairs…the rich and the poor same planet different worlds. Well done Keith.
True today as ever it was. Thanks, Suzette.
Yes!! I was thinking on exactly that point, Keith.
The discrepancy between the two types of lives is still there, though not that big.
It certainly was more extreme in days of yore.
Yes it was. And still is in poor countries where the gap keeps growing
all too true to this day.
a well told, if not regrettable story.
Indeed.
My heart, how sad. And as Clark has pointed out, just as true now and just as sad.
So true, Mimi.
Makes me think of The Prince and the Pauper
I get that, David.
Such a dreadful contrast. I love the parallels in your story – four paragraphs in each, and each one in the second half echoes its partner in the first. I love that approach. I’m a sucker for clever structure -brilliant. Great details too, that underscore and highlight the lifestyles of the two sets of characters – the handkerchief to the nose, forelock tugging, then the rats, and that pauper’s grave.
Then at the end, we’re back at the manor. And a six-year-old about to repeat the dreadful cycle of slavery and poverty. Dreadful times. I hesitate to say I’m glad they’re over, because I know the horrible reality of the haves and have-nots of our own times.
Well done! And as others have said, so realistic. The complication, as communism so aptly illustrated, is that it doesn’t work just to take from the rich and give to the poor.