Listen...the background strings are the wind; and the rolling piano notes, stronger, are the sea."


John Hugh Marston could hardly remember the last time he'd set foot in a church; but he would today. He'd scrubbed his sooty hands red in the washbasin, shaved and dressed in clean shirt and trousers, a waistcoat and jacket, and combed his hair in a pedestal shaving-glass, the silver beginning to discolor around the edges from the damp. He studied his hazy reflection for a moment. He knew that some of the townspeople would wonder why he'd suddenly found religion and music, and there might even be a few snickers. Some might even wonder, and he knew it wouldn't take long, if he'd taken a fancy to the church's new choir director, Miss Janet Morrison. And maybe he had; but he was a bit rusty and out of practice, if indeed he ever had been.

He saddled his horse and they made their way over the muddy slough into town.


She was there, with her fiancé and daughter, and after removing his hat and nodding his head in acknowledgement of them and a few other people he knew as he entered the church , he sat in the next pew. She was wearing a dress of a deep wine colour, and a bonnet with matching ribbons, soft and pretty and less severe-looking than what she usually wore.

And as he stood and sang the opening hymn, people were surprised at the deep richness of his voice, how nicely he sang. He was surprised that he remembered it.