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English the one idea that gives salt to life is the idea of home. On some
day, however distant it may be, they will once more turn their faces
towards the little northern island, and then all will be well with them.
To a certain Englishman there, and to his dear little wife, this prospect
came some few years since somewhat suddenly. Events and tidings, it
matters not which or what, brought it about that they resolved between
themselves that they would start immediately;-- almost immediately.
They would pack up and leave San Jose within four months of the day

on which their purpose was first formed. At San Jose a period of only
four months for such a purpose was immediately. It creates a feeling of
instant excitement, a necessity for instant doing, a consciousness that
there was in those few weeks ample work both for the hands and
thoughts,--work almost more than ample. The dear little wife, who for
the last two years had been so listless, felt herself flurried.
"Harry," she said to her husband, "how shall we ever be ready?" And
her pretty face was lighted up with unusual brightness at the happy
thought of so much haste with such an object. "And baby's things too,"
she said, as she thought of all the various little articles of dress that
would be needed. A journey from San Jose to Southampton cannot in
truth be made as easily as one from London to Liverpool. Let us think
of a month to be passed without any aid from the washerwoman, and
the greatest part of that month amidst the sweltering heats of the West
Indian tropics!
In the first month of her hurry and flurry Mrs. Arkwright was a happy
woman. She would see her mother again and her sisters. It was now
four years since she had left them on the quay at Southampton, while
all their hearts were broken at the parting. She was a young bride then,
going forth with her new lord to meet the stern world. He had then been
home to look for a wife, and he had found what he looked for in the
younger sister of his partner. For he, Henry Arkwright, and his wife's
brother, Abel Ring, had established themselves together in San Jose.
And now, she thought, how there would be another meeting on those
quays at which there should be no broken hearts; at which there should
be love without sorrow, and kisses, sweet with the sweetness of
welcome, not bitter with the bitterness of parting. And people told
her,--the few neighbours around her,--how happy, how fortunate she
was to get home thus early in her life. They had been out some
ten,--some twenty years, and still the day of their return was distant.
And then she pressed her living baby to her breast, and wiped away a
tear as she thought of the other darling whom she would leave beneath
that distant sod.
And then came the question as to the route home. San Jose stands in the
middle of the high plain of Costa Rica, half way between the Pacific
and the Atlantic. The journey thence down to the Pacific is, by
comparison, easy. There is a road, and the mules on which the

travellers must ride go steadily and easily down to Punta Arenas, the
port on that ocean. There are inns, too, on the way,-- places of public
entertainment at which refreshment may be obtained, and beds, or fair
substitutes for beds. But then by this route the traveller must take a long
additional sea voyage. He must convey himself and his weary baggage
down to that wretched place on the Pacific, there wait for a steamer to
take him to Panama, cross the isthmus, and reship himself in the other
waters for his long journey home. That terrible unshipping and
reshipping is a sore burden to the unaccustomed traveller. When it is
absolutely necessary,--then indeed it is done without much thought; but
in the case of the Arkwrights it was not absolutely necessary. And there
was another reason which turned Mrs. Arkwright's heart against that
journey by Punt' Arenas. The place is unhealthy, having at certain
seasons a very bad name;--and here on their outward journey her
husband had been taken ill. She had never ceased to think of the
fortnight she had spent there among uncouth strangers, during a portion
of which his life had trembled in the balance. Early, therefore, in those
four months she begged that she might not be taken round by Punt'
Arenas. There was another route. "Harry, if you love me, let me go by
the Serapiqui." As to Harry's loving her, there was no doubt about that,
as she well knew.
There was this other route by