The
old chairmaker was sitting by the fire when we went in; and opposite
to him sat "Old John," the hero of the broken windows in Nile
Street. He had come up to have a crack with his blind crony. The
chairmaker was seventy years of age, and he had benefited by the
advantage of good fundamental instruction in his youth. He was very
communicative. He said he should have been educated for the
priesthood, at Stonyhurst College. "My clothes were made, an'
everything was ready for me to start to Stonyhurst. There was a
stagecoach load of us going; but I failed th' heart, an' wouldn't
go--an' I've forethought ever sin'. Mr Newby said to my friends at
the same time, he said, 'You don't need to be frightened of him;
he'll make the brightest priest of all the lot--an' I should, too. .
. . I consider mysel' a young man yet, i' everything, except it be
somethin' at's uncuth to me." And now, old John, the grinder, began
to complain again of how badly he had been used about the broken
windows in Nile Street. But the old chairmaker stopped him; and,
turning up his blind eyes, he said, "John, don't you be foolish.
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