Chapter I: 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