The Attache, page 59 by Thomas Chandler Haliburton
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f a heathen Indgian! sais I; let me go this blessed minite, for I renounce the devil and all his works, the devil and all his works--so there now; and I let go a kick behind, the wickedest you ever see, and took it right in the bread basket. Oh, it yelled and howled and screached like a wounded hyaena, till my ears fairly cracked agin. I renounce you, Satan, sais I; I renounce you, and the world, and the flesh and the devil. And now, sais I, a jumpin' on terry firm once more, and turnin' round and facin' the enemy, I'll promise a little dust more for myself, and that is to renounce Niagara, and Indgian squaws, and dead Britishers, and the whole seed, breed and generation of 'em from this time forth, for evermore. Amen.
"'Oh blazes! how cold my face is yet. Waiter, half a pint of clear cocktail; somethin' to warm me. Oh, that cold hand! Did you ever touch a dead man's hand? it's awful cold, you may depend. Is there any marks on my face? do you see the tracks of the fingers there?'
"'No, Sir,' sais I,' I can't say I do.'
"'Well, then I feel them there,' sais he, 'as plain as any thing.'
"'Stranger,' sais I, 'it was nothin' but some poor no-souled critter, like yourself, that was skeered a'most to death, and wanted to be helped out that's all."
"'Skeered!' said he, 'sarves him right then; he might have knowed how to feel for other folks, and not funkify them so peskily; I don't keer if he never gets out; but I have my doubts about its bein' a livin' human, I tell you. If I hadn't a renounced the devil and all his works that time, I don't know what the upshot would have been, for Old Scratch was there too. I saw him as plain as I see you; he ran out afore me, and couldn't stop or look back, as long as I said catekism. He was in his old shape of the sarpent; he was the matter of a yard long, and as thick round as my arm and travelled belly-flounder fashion; when I touched land, he dodged into an eddy, and out of sight in no time. Oh, there is no mistake, I'll take my oath of