Ronald and I; or, Studies from Life

by Alfred Pretor

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 withThanks’: a Postscript		[181]

Ronald and I

Broadwater
A SHADOW FROM THE PAST