nor
the twanging bow was heard, there was surely an echo of their far-away
music in the young painter's ear! No, there was none.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter,

was a line Richard Yorke had read, perhaps, but certainly had not
understood. He heard the bare branch creak and sway above his head as
the wind slowly took it; he heard the night-jar croak, as it flew by on
silent wing; and now and then he heard, or thought he heard, the sound
of the voices of his fellow-watchers a great way off, which was his only
touch of fancy. They were all silent, and in close hiding.

It is not to be supposed, however, that his mind was fixed upon the
matter in which he was engaged, so that other subjects were thereby
excluded from it. 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. He could not be
said to have expectations, but his position was not without certain
contingencies, the extreme brilliancy of which might almost atone for
their vagueness. It was from a dream of future greatness, or what seemed
to him as such, wherein he saw himself wealthy and powerful, surrounded
with luxury and with the ministers of every pleasure, that he was
suddenly and sharply awakened by a trifling incident--the snapping of a
dead twig in the copse hard by. In an instant the glittering gossamer of
thought was swept aside, and the young fellow was all ear and eye. The
wind had dropped for some time, and the silence was