The initial description of this novel's protagonist describes how he contorts his face to reach awkwardly for his overlarge pocket watch, which has a reliable minute hand but a wonky hour hand.  
The initial description of this novel's protagonist describes how he contorts his face to reach awkwardly for his overlarge pocket watch, which has a reliable minute hand but a wonky hour hand.  After one character is arrested, a closet full of fine female clothes is found marked with his last name and his unrequited love's first name.  Henery Fray and Matthew Moon often swap gossip at Morton's malt-house with Joseph Poorgrass in this work, and another character is feared drowned after he is swept out to sea while bathing.  The protagonist is ruined when a dog called "George's son" runs his flock over a cliff, and he ends up marrying his true love, whose husband Sergeant Troy is shot by Boldwood.  For 10 points, name this novel featuring Gabriel Oak and Bathsheba Everdene, a work of Thomas Hardy that takes its name from a locale away from "ignoble strife" in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
The initial description of this novel's protagonist describes how he contorts his face to reach awkwardly for his overlarge pocket watch, which has a reliable minute hand but a wonky hour hand.  
{Far From the Madding Crowd}