A tale of love, life, laughter and tragedy, with some smuggling thrown in, set amongst the people living near the tin and copper mines of St. Just, Cornwall, in the mid 19th Century. During the mid 1860's the author, R. M. Ballantyne, spent over three months living amongst the mine-workers of St. Just. He incorporates into his novel many historical facts, producing an exciting and very accurate portrayal of Victorian tin a. I really enjoyed the main character, Oliver Trembath. Trembath is a young doctor who travels to the Cornwall district in England where there are many tin mines and such. You can learn much about the mines from this book. There are rum smugglers in this book, speculations, and many other adventures. The romance, however, was a little cheesy, unlike other Ballantyne books (e.g. Post Haste.) But, overall it was good, just not Ballantyne's best work