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Updated: May 13, 2025
The cause was, at length, decided, and a letter from good Father Cyril conveyed to Eustace the intelligence that the Chancellor, William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, having given due weight to Sir Reginald's dying words and Lady Lynwood's testament, had pronounced Sir Eustace Lynwood the sole guardian of the person and estate of his nephew, and authorized all the arrangements he had made on his departure.
When he had done, he tied up the MS. in his usual prosaic fashion, just as if it had been a bundle of clothes, and put it on a side table. It was arranged that I should take it to Davison the publisher of 'Lynwood's Heritage' on Monday, and see what offer he would make for it. Just at that time I felt so sorry for Derrick that if he had asked me to hawk round fifty novels I would have done it.
However, to make a long story short, a month later that is, at the end of November 'Lynwood's Heritage' was published in three volumes with maroon cloth and gilt lettering. Derrick had distributed among his friends the publishers' announcement of the day of publication; and when it was out I besieged the libraries for it, always expressing surprise if I did not find it in their lists.
Again was his demand refused, and shortly after Lady Lynwood's alarms were brought to a height by an attempt on his part to waylay her son and carry him off by force, whilst riding in the neighbourhood of the Castle. The plot had failed, by the fidelity of the villagers of Lynwood, but the shock to the lady had increased the progress of the decay of her health, already undermined by grief.
Having devoured 'At Strife, people began to discover the merits of 'Lynwood's Heritage; the libraries were besieged for it, and a cheap edition was hastily published, and another and another, till the book, which at first had been such a dead failure, rivalled 'At Strife. Truly an author's career is a curious thing; and precisely why the first book failed, and the second succeeded, no one could explain.
He hesitated a moment, being always very diffident about his own work; but presently, having provided me with a cigar and made a good deal of unnecessary work in arranging the sheets of the manuscript, he began to read aloud, rather nervously, the opening chapters of the book now so well known under the title of 'Lynwood's Heritage.
That night I listened to the first half of the third volume of 'Lynwood's Heritage, and couldn't help reflecting that its author seemed to thrive on misery; and yet how I grudged him to this deadly-lively place, and this monotonous, cooped-up life. "How do you manage to write one-handed?" I asked.
"Go to the guard-room, where you shall be well entertained till such time as we need thee again, as we may, if you have been, as you say, long in Sir Eustace Lynwood's service. But what now? Hast more to say?"
I can recall the look in Derrick's face when one day he glanced through the new Mudie and Smith lists and found 'Lynwood's Heritage' no longer down. I had been trying to cheer him up about the book and quoting all the favourable remarks I had heard about it. But unluckily this was damning evidence against my optimist view. He sighed heavily and put down the lists.
He had astonished me by the vigour and depth of the first volume of 'Lynwood's Heritage. He astonished me now by a new phase in his own character. Apparently he who had always been content to follow where I led, and to watch life rather than to take an active share in it, now intended to strike out a very decided line of his own.
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