And no doubt there were many more of which I had never heard.
It stood at the top of a garden stretching down to the lane or street that ran through a hermit-group of dwellings in Mellstock parish.

From a green gate at the lower entrance, over which the thorn hedge had been shaped to an arch by constant clippings, a gravel path ascended between the box edges of once trim raspberry, strawberry, and vegetable plots, towards the front door.

This was in colour an ancient and bleached green that could be rubbed off with the finger, and it bore a small long-featured brass knocker covered with verdigris in its crevices.

For some years before this eve of demolition the homestead had degenerated, and been divided into two tenements to serve as cottages for farm labourers; but in its prime it had indisputable claim to be considered neat, pretty, and genteel.
The variety of incidents above alluded to was mainly owing to the nature of the tenure, whereby the place had been occupied by families not quite of the kind customary in such spots--people whose circumstances, position, or antecedents were more or less of a critical happy-go-lucky cast.

And of these residents the family whose term comprised the story I wish to relate was that of Mr.Jacob Paddock the market-gardener, who dwelt there for some years with his wife and grown-up daughter.
I An evident commotion was agitating the premises, which jerked busy sounds across the front plot, resembling those of a disturbed hive.