Riding Officer

Ashley Penberth's father was drowned while making a last smuggling run from France, just days before the boy's birth.
Brought up by his mother on their farm near the Helford river, and educated at a snobbish and bullying private school on the proceeds of that last contraband run, Ashley aspires to middleclass gentility. He is helped in this ambition by the local squire, and the friendship of the squire's daughters, Jenny and Alethea.
But an accident which leaves him lame deprives Ashley of the chance to join the Navy. He is recruited as a Riding Officer, the customs official whose job is to patrol a section of the Cornish coast catching smugglers and wreckers.
Now the sworn enemy of his father's former comrades, Ashley performs his job well, until he meets the beautiful and spirited Rose Roskruge, barmaid of the Three Tuns Inn. He then faces a double challenge, both to his heart and his professional integrity.