Smush was at this instant emerging from the back parlor with a tray of colored fluids for the dancers. With one vigorous kick the major sent the whole flying; and ere the terrified servitor knew what the assault portended, a strong grasp caught him by the throat, and ran him up bang! against the clock-case. Oh, what a terrible moment was that for me! I heard the very gurgling rattle in his throat, like choking, and felt as if when he ceased to breathe that I should expire with him. "You confess it! you own it, then, you infernal rascal!" said the major, almost hoarse with rage. "Oh, forgive me, sir! oh, forgive me! It was Mr Cregan, sir, the butler, who told me! Oh dear, I'm--" What, he couldn't finish; for the major, in relinquishing his grasp, flung him backwards, and he fell against the stairs. "So it was Mr.--Cregan,--the--butler,--was it?" said the major, with an emphasis on each word as though he had bitten the syllables. "Well! as sure as my name is Tony McCan, Mr. Cregan shall pay for this! Turn about is fair play; you have marked _me_, and may I be drummer to the Cape Fencibles if I don't mark _you!_" and with this denunciation, uttered in a tone, every accent of which vouched for truth, he took a hat--the first next to him--and issued from the house. Shivering with terror,--and not without cause,--I waited till Smush had, with Sambo's aid, carried downstairs the broken fragments; and then, the coast being clear, I stepped from my hiding-place, and opening the hall-door, fled,--ay, ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I crossed the grass terrace in front of the barrack, not heeding the hoarse "Who goes there?" of the sentry; and then, dashing along the battery-wall, hastened down the stairs that lead in successive flights to the filthy "Lower Town," in whose dingy recesses I well knew that crime or shame could soon find a sanctuary. CHAPTER XV. AN EMIGRANTS FIRST STEP ON SHORE If I say that the Lower Town of Quebec is the St. Giles's of the metropolis, I convey but a very faint notion indeed of that terrible locality. I have seen life in some of its least attractive situations. I am not ignorant of the Liberties of Dublin and the Claddagh of Galway; I have passed more time than I care to mention in the Isle St. Louis of Paris; while the Leopoldstadt of Vienna and the Ghetto of Rome are tolerably familiar to me; but still, for wickedness in its most unwashed state, I give palm to the Lower Town of Quebec.