These "more excellent" things appear upon another page in my balance sheet—a page which would make the professional auditor gasp for breath.
My experiences have made me a richer woman, though not a more important personage to my bankers. I am healthier and happier than I was a year ago. I have a living interest in an entire community, and an entire community has a living interest in me. And I have a few real friends in various stations of life, each of whom would do a great deal for me, and each of whom has taught me several valuable lessons without fee or reward. The moors and the glens, too, have had me to school and opened to me their secret stores of knowledge, and who shall compute the worth of that education? As a result, I have a saner outlook and a truer judgment, and that counts for much in my case. Undoubtedly the balance is on the right side, and I have no regrets as I turn and look back along the track of the year.
The anniversary day itself was marked by an incident of uncommon interest. The weather was atrocious, and in marked contrast to that of the previous year on the corresponding date. Had such conditions prevailed when I first saw Windyridge the village would not have known me as one of its householders.
It rained as though the floodgates of heaven had been opened and got rusted fast. For three days there had been one endless downpour, but on the fateful Wednesday it degenerated into a miserable, depressing drizzle which gave me the blues. The distance disappeared behind an impenetrable wall of mist, and the horizon was the hedge of the field fifty yards away. The drip, drip, drip from a leak in the glazing of my studio so got on my nerves that in the afternoon I put on my strong boots and a waterproof and set out for a walk.
But though the rain could not conquer me the sticky mud did. After covering a mile in half an hour I was so tired with the exertion that I turned back, and was relieved when the distance has been almost covered and only a few hundred yards separated me from the cottage.
I had had the road to myself so far, but as I came down the hill which skirts the graveyard I saw a stranger in the act of opening the gate and entering. At the same moment, apparently, he caught sight of me, and we scrutinised each other with interest as the distance between us lessened.
He was a well-dressed young fellow of about thirty, with a stern expression on an otherwise rather pleasing face. His mouth was hidden by a heavy moustache, but I liked his eyes, which had a frank look in them. His rather long raincoat was dripping wet, and he had no other protection from the rain, for he carried in his hand a stout stick of peculiar shape. His hands and face were brown from exposure, and I took him to be a prosperous, intelligent farmer.
He raised his hat at my approach. "I am sorry to detain you, even for a moment, in this rain," he said, "but I wondered if you could tell me whether anyone of the name of Brown—Greenwood Brown—is buried here."
Oh! thought I, you have come back, have you? But I merely replied:
"Yes, Mr. Brown's grave is near the top of the hill. I will show you which it is."