A very old-fashioned adventure, in which the hero returns from drought-ridden Canada to his father's native Cornwall (from whence he was banished in shadowy circumstances) to live with his grandfather and (wicked) uncle and take the entrance exam for his father's school. The first mini-sermon appears without warning on page 36, from the first of two adult characters who unexpectedly turn out to be furloughed missionaries, and there are several more sudden digressions into evangelical preaching. There is a house on a rock (named The Rock in order to facilitate a blatant reference to Scripture), secret passages, mysterious figures, treacherous tides, lost wealth, recovery of the power of speech by the crucial witness to skulduggery, and immoral dealings justly punished. I was quite surprised when, at the end of the book, the hero merely enters into his inheritance and goes off to St Perran's school with a pious expression of personal faith, without actually committing to a future life spent converting the African tribes. MB 11-xi-2020 ( )