The Pamments were very exclusive people, exceptionally exclusive even for high class Tories. Their gardens, and lawns, and grounds were jealously surrounded with walls higher than the old-fashioned houses of the street beneath them. No one dared to so much as peer through a crevice of the mighty gates. Their persons were encircled with the "divinity" that hedges the omnipotent landed proprietor. No one dared speak to a Pamment. They acknowledged no one in the town, not even the solicitors, not even the clergyman of the Abbey church; that was on account of ritual differences.
It was, indeed, whispered—high treason must always be whispered—that young Pamment, the son and heir, was by no means so exclusive, and had been known to be effusive towards ladies of low birth—and manners.
The great leaders of Greece—Alcibiades, Aristides, and so on—threw open their orchards to the people. Everyone walked in and did as he chose. These great leaders of England—the Pamments—shut up their lawns and pleasure-grounds, sealed them hermetically, you could hardly throw a stone over the walls if you tried.
But Grandfather Iden walked through those walls as if there were none; he alone of all Woolhorton town and country.
In that gossipy little town, of course, there were endless surmises as to the why and wherefore of that private key. Shrewd people said—"Ah! you may depend they be getting summat out of him. Lent 'em some of his guineas, a' reckon. They be getting summat out of him. Hoss-leeches, they gentlefolks."
Grandfather Iden alone entered when he listed: he wandered about the lawns, he looked in at the conservatories, he took a bunch of grapes if it pleased him, or a bouquet of flowers; he actually stepped indoors occasionally and sat down on the carved old chairs, or pottered about the picture gallery. He had a private key to the nail-studded door in the wall by the Abbey church, and he looked upon that key very much as if it had been the key of Paradise.
When Grandfather Iden stood on the lawn at Pamment House he was the proudest and happiest man in what they sarcastically call "God's creation."
He was a peer at such moments; a grandee—the grandee who can wear his hat or sit down (which is it? it is most important to be accurate) in the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign; he could actually step on the same sward pressed by the holy toes of the Pamments.
In justice to him it must be said that he was most careful not to obtrude himself into the sight of their sacred majesties. If they were at home he rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented paths, the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself under the fig trees, as it were. But if by chance a Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy that he was literally dandled and fondled like an infant, begged to come in, and take wine, and so so, and so so.
In justice to old Iden let it be known that he was most careful not to obtrude himself; he hid himself under the fig trees.