"Surely," said Tom to himself, "it is not possible that she's going to dance with Phil M'Dermott, the greatest clout of a fellow in all Shanvilla—and that's a bold word. Nothing but a bellows-blower to his father—a common nailor at the cross-roads. Thank God, I put Emon, as she calls him, from dancing with her, any way. He would be bad enough; but he is always clean at all events, that's one thing—neen han an shin. See! by the devil, there she's out with him, sure enough. I think the girl is mad."
Now Tom Murdock's ill-humor and vexation had led him, though only to himself, to give an under-estimate of Phil M'Dermott in more respects than one. In the first place, Phil's father, so far from being a common nailor, was a most excellent smith-of-all-work. He made ploughs, harrows, and all sorts of machinery, and was unequivocally the best horse-shoer in the whole country. People were in the habit of sending their horses five, ay ten, miles to Bryan M'Dermott's forge—"establishment" it might almost be called—and Tom Murdock himself, when he kept the race-mare, had sent her past half-a-dozen forges to get her "properly fitted" at Phil M'Dermott's.
Phil himself had served his time to his father, and was no less an adept in all matters belonging to his trade; and as to "driving a nail," there never was a man wore an apron could put on a shoe so safely. A nail, too, except for the above purpose, was never made in their forge. If sometimes Phil threw up his bare hairy arm to pull down the handle of the bellows, it was only what his father himself would do, if the regular blower was out of the way.
In fact, "Bryan M'Dermott and Son, Smiths," might have very justly figured over their forge-door; but they were so well known that a sign-board of any kind was superfluous.
Then as to being a clout, Phil was the very furthest from it in the world, if it can have any meaning with reference to a man at all. There are nails called clouts; and perhaps as a nailor was uppermost in Tom's cantankerous mind, it had suggested the epithet.
We have now only to deal with the dirt—the neen han an shin of his spite.
That Phil M'Dermott was very often dirty was the necessary result of his calling, at which the excellence of his knowledge kept him constantly employed. But on this occasion, as on all Sundays and holidays, Phil M'Dermott's person could vie with even Tom Murdock's, "or any other man's," in scrupulous cleanliness. Now indeed, if there were some streaks and blotches of blood upon the breast of his shirt, he might thank Tom Murdock's handiwork for that same.
Such as he was, however, bloody shirt and all, Winny Cavana went out to dance with him before the whole assembly of Rathcash boys, speckless as they were.
Kate Mulvey had been endeavoring to carry on her own tactics privately all the morning, and had refused two or three Shanvilla boys, saying that she heard there would be no dance, but that if there was, she would dance with them before it was over. She now accidentally stood not very far from where Tom had been snubbed and turned away from by her bosom friend, Winny Cavana. Tom Murdock saw her, and saw that she was alone as far as a partner was concerned.
Determined to let Winny see that there were "as good fish in the sea as [{821}] ever were caught," and that she had not the power to upset his enjoyment, Tom made up to Kate, and, assuming the most amiable smile which the wicked confusion of his mind permitted, he asked her to dance.