

Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of All Countries”
edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org





                             RETURNING HOME.


IT is generally supposed that people who live at home,—good domestic
people, who love tea and their arm-chairs, and who keep the parlour
hearth-rug ever warm,—it is generally supposed that these are the people
who value home the most, and best appreciate all the comforts of that
cherished institution.  I am inclined to doubt this.  It is, I think, to
those who live farthest away from home, to those who find the greatest
difficulty in visiting home, that the word conveys the sweetest idea.  In
some distant parts of the world it may be that an Englishman acknowledges
his permanent resting place; but there are many others in which he will
not call his daily house, his home.  He would, in his own idea, desecrate
the word by doing so.  His home is across the blue waters, in the little
northern island, which perhaps he may visit no more; which he has left,
at any rate, for half his life; from which circumstances, and the
necessity of living, have banished him.  His home is still in England,
and when he speaks of home his thoughts are there.

No one can understand the intensity of this feeling who has not seen or
felt the absence of interest in life which falls to the lot of many who
have to eat their bread on distant soils.  We are all apt to think that a
life in strange countries will be a life of excitement, of stirring
enterprise, and varied scenes;—that in abandoning the comforts of home,
we shall receive in exchange more of movement and of adventure than would
come in our way in our own tame country; and this feeling has, I am sure,
sent many a young man roaming.  Take any spirited fellow of twenty, and
ask him whether he would like to go to Mexico for the next ten years!
Prudence and his father may ultimately save him from such banishment, but
he will not refuse without a pang of regret.

Alas! it is a mistake.  Bread may be earned, and fortunes, perhaps, made
in such countries; and as it is the destiny of our race to spread itself
over the wide face of the globe, it is well that there should be
something to gild and paint the outward face of that lot which so many
are called upon to choose.  But for a life of daily excitement, there is
no life like life in England; and the farther that one goes from England
the more stagnant, I think, do the waters of existence become.

But if it be so for men, it is ten times more so for women.  An
Englishman, if he be at Guatemala or Belize, must work for his bread, and
that work will find him in thought and excitement.  But what of his wife?
Where will she find excitement?  By what pursuit will she repay herself
for all that she has left behind her at her mother’s fireside?  She will
love her husband.  Yes; that at least!  If there be not that, there will
be a hell, indeed.  Then she will nurse her children, and talk of
her—home.  When the time shall come that her promised return thither is
within a year or two of its accomplishment, her thoughts will all be
fixed on that coming pleasure, as are the thoughts of a young girl on her
first ball for the fortnight before that event comes off.

On the central plain of that portion of Central America which is called
Costa Rica stands the city of San José.  It is the capital of the
Republic,—for Costa Rica is a Republic,—and, for Central America, is a
town of some importance.  It is in the middle of the coffee district,
surrounded by rich soil on which the sugar-cane is produced, is blessed
with a climate only moderately hot, and the native inhabitants are
neither cut-throats nor cannibals.  It may be said, therefore, that by
comparison with some other spots to which Englishmen and others are
congregated for the gathering together of money, San José may be
considered as a happy region; but, nevertheless, a life there is not in
every way desirable.  It is a dull place, with little to interest either
the eye or the ear.  Although the heat of the tropics is but little felt
there on account of its altitude, men and women become too lifeless for
much enterprise.  There is no society.  There are a few Germans and a few
Englishmen in the place, who see each other on matters of business during
the day; but, sombre as life generally is, they seem to care little for
each other’s company on any other footing.  I know not to what point the
aspirations of the Germans may stretch themselves, but to the 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 José within four months of the day on which
their purpose was first formed.  At San José 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 José 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 José.  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 José 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 Panamá, 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 the Serapiqui river, and by Greytown.
Greytown, it is true, is quite as unhealthy as Punt’ Arenas, and by that
route one’s baggage must be shipped and unshipped into small boats.
There are all manner of difficulties attached to it.  Perhaps no direct
road to and from any city on the world’s surface is subject to sharper
fatigue while it lasts.  Journeying by this route also, the traveller
leaves San José mounted on his mule, and so mounted he makes his way
through the vast primeval forests down to the banks of the Serapiqui
river.  That there is a track for him is of course true; but it is simply
a track, and during nine months of the twelve is so deep in mud that the
mules sink in it to their bellies.  Then, when the river has been
reached, the traveller seats him in his canoe, and for two days is
paddled down,—down along the Serapiqui, into the San Juan River, and down
along the San Juan till he reaches Greytown, passing one night at some
hut on the river side.  At Greytown he waits for the steamer which will
carry him his first stage on his road towards Southampton.  He must be a
connoisseur in disagreeables of every kind who can say with any precision
whether Greytown or Punt’ Arenas is the better place for a week’s
sojourn.

For a full month Mr. Arkwright would not give way to his wife.  At first
he all but conquered her by declaring that the Serapiqui journey would be
dangerous for the baby; but she heard from some one that it could be made
less fatiguing for the baby than the other route.  A baby had been
carried down in a litter strapped on to a mule’s back.  A guide at the
mule’s head would be necessary, and that was all.  When once in her boat
the baby would be as well as in her cradle.  What purpose cannot a woman
gain by perseverance?  Her purpose in this instance Mrs. Arkwright did at
last gain by persevering.

And then their preparations for the journey went on with much flurrying
and hot haste.  To us at home, who live and feel our life every day, the
manufacture of endless baby-linen and the packing of mountains of clothes
does not give an idea of much pleasurable excitement; but at San José,
where there was scarcely motion enough in existence to prevent its waters
from becoming foul with stagnation, this packing of baby-linen was
delightful, and for a month or so the days went by with happy wings.

But by degrees reports began to reach both Arkwright and his wife as to
this new route, which made them uneasy.  The wet season had been
prolonged, and even though they might not be deluged by rain themselves,
the path would be in such a state of mud as to render the labour
incessant.  One or two people declared that the road was unfit at any
time for a woman,—and then the river would be much swollen.  These
tidings did not reach Arkwright and his wife together, or at any rate not
till late amidst their preparations, or a change might still have been
made.  As it was, after all her entreaties, Mrs. Arkwright did not like
to ask him again to alter his plans; and he, having altered them once,
was averse to change them again.  So things went on till the mules and
the boats had been hired, and things had gone so far that no change could
then be made without much cost and trouble.

During the last ten days of their sojourn at San José, Mrs. Arkwright had
lost all that appearance of joy which had cheered up her sweet face
during the last few months.  Terror at that terrible journey obliterated
in her mind all the happiness which had arisen from the hope of being
soon at home.  She was thoroughly cowed by the danger to be encountered,
and would gladly have gone down to Punt’ Arenas, had it been now possible
that she could so arrange it.  It rained, and rained, and still rained,
when there was now only a week from the time they started.  Oh! if they
could only wait for another month!  But this she said to no one.  After
what had passed between her and her husband, she had not the heart to say
such words to him.  Arkwright himself was a man not given to much
talking, a silent thoughtful man, stern withal in his outward bearing,
but tender-hearted and loving in his nature.  The sweet young wife who
had left all, and come with him out to that dull distant place, was very
dear to him,—dearer than she herself was aware, and in these days he was
thinking much of her coming troubles.  Why had he given way to her
foolish prayers?  Ah, why indeed?  And thus the last few days of their
sojourn in San José passed away from them.  Once or twice during these
days she did speak out, expressing her fears.  Her feelings were too much
for her, and she could not restrain herself.  “Poor mamma,” she said, “I
shall never see her!”  And then again, “Harry, I know I shall never reach
home alive.”

“Fanny, my darling, that is nonsense.”  But in order that his spoken word
might not sound stern to her, he took her in his arms and kissed her.

“You must behave well, Fanny,” he said to her the day before they
started.  Though her heart was then very low within her, she promised him
that she would do her best, and then she made a great resolution.  Though
she should be dying on the road, she would not complain beyond the
absolute necessity of her nature.  She fully recognised his thoughtful
tender kindness, for though he thus cautioned her, he never told her that
the dangers which she feared were the result of her own choice.  He never
threw in her teeth those prayers which she had made, in yielding to which
he knew that he had been weak.

Then came the morning of their departure.  The party of travellers
consisted of four besides the baby.  There was Mr. Arkwright, his wife,
and an English nurse, who was going to England with them, and her
brother, Abel Ring, who was to accompany them as far as the Serapiqui
River.  When they had reached that, the real labour of the journey would
be over.

They had eight mules; four for the four travellers, one for the baby, a
spare mule laden simply with blankets, so that Mrs. Arkwright might
change in order that she should not be fatigued by the fatigue of her
beast, and two for their luggage.  The portion of their baggage had
already been sent off by Punt’ Arenas, and would meet them at the other
side of the Isthmus of Panamà.

For the last four days the rain had ceased,—had ceased at any rate at San
José.  Those who knew the country well, would know that it might still be
raining over those vast forests; but now as the matter was settled, they
would hope for the best.  On that morning on which they started the sun
shone fairly, and they accepted this as an omen of good.  Baby seemed to
lay comfortably on her pile of blankets on the mule’s back, and the face
of the tall Indian guide who took his place at that mule’s head pleased
the anxious mother.

“Not leave him ever,” he said in Spanish, laying his hand on the cord
which was fastened to the beast’s head; and not for one moment did he
leave his charge, though the labour of sticking close to him was very
great.

They had four attendants or guides, all of whom made the journey on foot.
That they were all men of mixed race was probable; but three of them
would have been called Spaniards, Spaniards, that is, of Costa Rica, and
the other would be called an Indian.  One of the Spaniards was the
leader, or chief man of the party, but the others seemed to stand on an
equal footing with each other; and indeed the place of greatest care had
been given to the Indian.

For the first four or five miles their route lay along the high road
which leads from San José to Punt’ Arenas, and so far a group of
acquaintances followed them, all mounted on mules.  Here, where the ways
forked, their road leading through the great forests to the Atlantic,
they separated, and many tears were shed on each side.  What might be the
future life of the Arkwrights had not been absolutely fixed, but there
was a strong hope on their part that they might never be forced to return
to Costa Rica.  Those from whom they now parted had not seemed to be dear
to them in any especial degree while they all lived together in the same
small town, seeing each other