Early in the month of the succeeding February, the Arrandoon lay at the Broomielaw, with the blue-peter unfurled, steam up, all hands on board, and even the pilot. That very morning they were to begin their adventurous voyage. Ralph, Allan, and Rory would be picked up at Oban, and the vessel now only awaited the arrival of McBain before casting off and dropping down stream.
The Broomielaw didn’t look pretty that morning, nor very comfortable. Although the hills all around Glasgow were white with snow, over the city itself hung the smoke like a murky pall. There was mud under feet, and a Scotch mist held possession of the air. Here was nothing cheering to look at, slop-shops and pawn-shops, and Jack-frequented dram-shops, bales of wet merchandise on the quay, and eave-dripping dock-houses; nor were the people pleasant to be among; the only human beings that did seem to enjoy themselves were the ragged urchins who had taken shelter in the empty barrels that lined the back of the warehouses; they had shelter, and sugar to eat. McBain thought he wouldn’t be sorry when he was safely round the Mull of Cantyre.
“Come on, Jack,” cried one of these tiny gutter-snipes, rushing out of his tub; “come on, here’s a row.”
There was a row; apparently a fight was going on, for a ring had formed a little way down the street; and simply out of curiosity McBain went to have a peep over the shoulders of the mob. As usual, the policemen were very busy in some other part of the street.
Only a poor little itinerant nigger boy lying on the ground, being savagely kicked by a burly and half-drunken street porter.
“Oh!” the little fellow was shrieking; “what for you kickee my shins so? Oh!”
McBain entered the ring in a very businesslike fashion indeed; he begged for room; he told the mob he meant thrashing the ruffian if he did not apologise to the poor lad. Then he intimated as much to the ruffian himself.
“Come on,” was the defiant reply, as the fellow threw himself into a fighting attitude. “Man, your mither’ll no ken ye when you gang home the nicht.”
“We’ll see,” said McBain, quietly.
For the next three minutes this ruffianly porter’s movements were confined to a series of beautiful falls, that would have brought down the house in a circus. When he rose the last time it was merely to assume a sitting position, “Gie us your hand,” he said to McBain. “You’re the first chiel that ever dang Jock the Wraggler. I admire ye, man—I admire ye.”