Harold Vallings' 'The Smugglers of Haven Quay' 1911

 

Frederick Warne first edition - 1911

This is what used to be (still is?) called a rattling good yarn. I thought his character-drawing was good, particularly that of the old smuggler Captain Simon Children, the mainstay of the nefarious trade based on Haven Quay. He wants to give it all up, but hazards one last throw (in fact, there will be two) which ends in disaster and his death. He leaves behind a small grandson Sam, who is again well portrayed by the author. The treacherous baddie, Jan Slocombe deservedly gets his comeuppance, mainly at the hands of the formidable Mother Chater, mine hostess at the local Inn and hand-in-glove with the smuggling trade. Vallings is equally at home describing the gentry at nearby Tarrant House - the very different brothers, Sir Claud and Rodney Tarrant and their wealthy heiress cousin, Miss Celia Willoughby. She must be a good egg, as she gives young Sam Sir Walter Scott's Quentin Durward to read. Moreover, Sam tells his muttering granddad: But everybody reads Sir Walter  Scott; he's the greatest writer in the world. The presence of the book helps to date the period of this novel to 1823 or beyond. Although Sam's grandfather dies (his father and mother are both dead) and he is regularly lonely, he lands on his feet at the end: sent to Winchester College and then destined for Oxford University, before he takes over a large landed inheritance, thanks to his grandfather's shrewd acquisitions.   I enjoyed the book; it had more depth in it than a mere young person's tale. It managed to see, and relate to, both sides of the story of the smuggling trade.    

Captain Simon Children

                                                      

Harold Vallings (1857-1927) is another author I knew nothing about. Luckily, my Edwardian Fiction. An Oxford Companion (1997) was to hand. He was born at Barrackpore, Calcutta, and educated at Tonbridge School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst (where he came first in the final exam). He joined the 16th Bedfordshire Regiment. After two years, however, he retired, suffering from a spinal complaint, and became an army coach. He made enough money from writing and teaching to marry, but had a nervous breakdown after the birth of his children.  He didn't find he was making enough money to keep his family - the Royal Literary Fund, to whom he applied in 1914 and 1918, were told in the latter year that he is very very badly off, and to help pay the rent of a small room his wife cooks for the landlady. He was the author of fourteen volumes of fiction 1888-1912, some of which were

1890: The Quality of Mercy (2 vols)

1893: The Transgression of Terence Clancy

1893: Three Brace of Losers: A comedy Idyll

1895: A Parson at Bay

1902: By Dulvercombe Water. A Love Story of 1685

1904: Paulette D'Esterre

1904: The Lady Mary of Tavistock

1912: Chess for a Stake

I forgot to add to my 'smuggling list' in my last Blog the following

G.P.R. James The Smuggler (3 vols. 1850) - centred in Kent in the 18th century.