Devon Boys: A Tale of the North Shore
1887
Devon Boys: A Tale of the North Shore
1887
Summer 1752. Three boys escape their grammar school in Barnstaple and head for the wild Devon cliffs, chasing the particular freedom that only coastal rocks and dangerous heights can offer. Sep Duncan narrates his return home with friends Bob Chowne and Bigley Uggleston, and their holiday immediately becomes a series of increasingly reckless escapades: moving boulders, scaling sheer faces, probing the secrets hidden in the crags below. Then comes the discovery that will change everything. A vein of galena. A real mine. Suddenly their play takes on a darker stakes, and the boys find themselves handling gunpowder, bringing down cliff faces, and digging into the earth with a desperation that feels less like childhood adventure and more like genuine obsession. Fenn captures something true about the way boys test themselves against the world, the friendship that forms in shared danger, and the costs that come when the line between courage and recklessness blurs. The sea below, the cliffs above, the mine that promises fortune and threatens collapse. It's a Victorian adventure that understands how high the stakes feel when you're fifteen and the whole summer lies ahead.
