The repression of night-poaching was not a matter that interested him either in principle or practice.

He would just as soon that the keeper had not reminded him of his offer to share his watch--the whim that had once seized him to do so had died away; but having once promised his company, he was not one to break his word.

So here he was.
The young man's thoughts were busy, then, neither with the past nor the present, but with the future--that is, _his own_ future.

The path of life did not lie straight before Richard Yorke, as it does before most men of his age, and in fact it came, so to speak, abruptly to a termination exactly where he stood.
In such a case, the choice of the wayfarer becomes boundless, and is only limited by the horizon and circumstances.

As matters were, he had scarcely enough to live on--not nearly enough to do so as his tastes and habits suggested; and yet, by one bold stroke, with luck to back it, he might, not "one day" (_that_ would have had small charm for him), but at once, and for his life-long, be rich and prosperous.