For not only did it supply a convenient receiving house for smuggled goods, but a convenient rendezvous for the more lawless characters of the neighbourhood--a back-of-beyond and No Man's Land where the devil could, with impunity, have things very much his own way.

In the intervals of more serious business, the vaults and cellars of Tandy's frequently resounded to the agonies and brutal hilarities of cock-fights, dog-fights, and other repulsive sports and pastimes common to the English--both gentle and simple--of that virile but singularly gross and callous age.

Nevertheless to Thomas Clarkson Verity, man of peace and of ideas, Tandy's represented--and continued to represent through over half a century--rescue, security, an awakening in something little short of paradise from a long-drawn nightmare of hell.

He paid an extortionate price for the property at the outset, and spent a small fortune on the enlargement of the house and improvement of the grounds, yet never regretted his bargain.
For, in good truth, when, in the spring of 1794, the soft, nimble, round-bodied, very polite, learned and loquacious little gentleman first set eyes upon its mean roofs, prick ears and vacant whitewashed countenance, he had been horribly shocked, horribly scared--for all the inherited valour of his good breeding--and, above all, most horribly disappointed.

History had played very dirty pranks with him, which he found it impossible as yet to forgive.
Five years earlier, fired, like many another generous spirit, by extravagant hope of the coming regeneration of mankind, he hurried off to Paris after the opening of the National Assembly and fall of the Bastille.