three
in the afternoon
Troy wandered along towards the south . A composite feeling , made up of disgust with the , to him , humdrum tediousness of a farmer 's life , gloomy images of her who lay in the churchyard , remorse , and a general averseness to his wife 's society , impelled him to seek a home in any place on earth save Weatherbury . The sad accessories of Fanny 's end confronted him as vivid pictures which threatened to be indelible , and made life in Bathsheba 's house intolerable . At three in the afternoon he found himself at the foot of a slope more than a mile in length , which ran to the ridge of a range of hills lying parallel with the shore , and forming a monotonous barrier between the basin of cultivated country inland and the wilder scenery of the coast . Up the hill stretched a road nearly straight and perfectly white , the two sides approaching each other in a gradual taper till they met the sky at the top about two miles off . Throughout the length of this narrow and irksome inclined plane not a sign of life was visible on this garish afternoon . Troy toiled up the road with a languor and depression greater than any he had experienced for many a day and year before .