Book excerpt: In A Day in the Country (third of six in Ashers Anthology), a letter sent to a family in another town comes about because of a meeting between musicians. One of which is a craftsman, who tells his apprentice that someone he met also had relatives with the same name as the apprentice. Years later, a phone call from the family, who received the letter, leads to a visit by the now-married apprentice to the caller. What follows isin some respectsa partial comedy and drama involving a potential religious intermarriage that fails to materialise but has remarkable consequences.