Transcribed from the 1899 Deighton Bell & Co. edition by David Price. RONALD AND I OR Studies from Life * * * * * BY ALFRED PRETOR * * * * * CAMBRIDGE DEIGHTON BELL & CO. LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1899 * * * * * CAMBRIDGE PRINTED BY JONATHAN PALMER ALEXANDRA STREET PREFACE Several of the following sketches have appeared already in the _Cambridge Review_ and the _Cantab_. Perhaps the friends who welcomed them then may welcome them now, on their reappearance in another and more permanent form. The story of “Our Rector” has been received in episcopal quarters with polite incredulity. It may be that episcopal supervision was less far-reaching in those days than now. At any rate, the things I have narrated, and things stranger still, _did_ occur in our village, and in all essential details, including the postprandial cigar, the story of “Our Rector” is a literal “study from life.” I would forget, if I could, that the “Cruel, Crawling Foam” is also a record of fact. A. P. CAMBRIDGE, _May_, 1899. * * * * * _To Mrs. Thomas Hardy_ _who suggested and_ _encouraged the writing_ _of these tales_ CONTENTS PAGE RONALD AND I: Broadwater: a Shadow from the Past 1 On the Race Course at Bayview 25 On the Sands 31 Our Rector 41 Echoes from an Organ Loft 55 Fighting the Cholera 67 Ronald’s Courtship 79 Judy, or Retrieved 99 The Professor 117 The Cruel, Crawling Foam 133 Our Queen 143 BINDO: a Sketch 155 ‘DECLINED WITH THANKS’: a Postscript 181 Ronald and I Broadwater A SHADOW FROM THE PAST I TURN your steps westward, and about four miles beyond Bayview you will come to a rising ground where three ways meet.