“And that reminds me. How do you propose to get home?”
“Well, really, I ——. Upon my word, I don’t know. I suppose, however, that I shall be able to discover some way of reaching England, when I have solved the preliminary problem of earning the necessary funds. I have already written some descriptive articles, which I hope will be accepted.”
“They are sure to be accepted, and well paid for into the bargain, for everything connected with you has roused the greatest interest in the country. So the question of your independence is settled already. But even were this not so, the Mother is always kind, and would provide you with the means of travelling. The difficulty lies in discovering your actual destination.”
“If this is really Ireland in a perfected state, I have not far to go. A country may be revolutionised and improved by social reforms, but nothing of much less power than an earthquake can remove it altogether. If England stands where it did, I have but to take a boat to Holyhead, and a few hours more will take me home to Northumberland.”
“And what will you do when you get there?”
“Report myself to my friends without further delay.”
“You forget that you must have been sleeping some centuries, and that you are not likely to find any friends left alive, or any place you have known, in the same condition as that in which you left it. Look at this map. Here is the island of which you speak. Holyhead and Northumberland still find their place upon it. But is all else as you left it?”
I eagerly looked at the map before me, and without difficulty pounced upon Newcastle. But where were all the outlying villages which used to assert themselves so independently and with such “plum”-like utterance?
Gone! Everyone of them. Swallowed up in the huge advance of their powerful centre, Newcastle-on-Tyne. I looked for Benwell, Gosforth, Scotswood, Lemington, Newburn, Benton, Killingworth, and a dozen other places, all in vain, for Newcastle overspread them all, and, as the veritable Metropolis of the North, presented a picture of progress and prosperity which were amazing to me.
I was told that centuries of effort had made the Tyne one of the noblest rivers in the land. Fleets could ride upon its waters in safety, and it was now an important naval station. Its commercial relations with the rest of the world were enormous. In arts and manufactures it was alike distinguished, and it was the most famous place in all Europe for the production of every kind of electrical apparati, besides being the northern centre of learning.