“You old liar,” said Foy shaking his head at him, “you killed that poor executioner and made off with his sword.  You know you did, and now you are ashamed to own the truth.”

“May be, may be,” answered Martin vacuously; “so many things happen in the world that a fool man cannot remember them all.  I want to go to sleep.”

“Martin,” said Foy, sitting down upon a stool and dragging off his leather jerkin, “what used you to do before you turned holy?  You have never told me all the story.  Come now, speak up.  I won’t tell Adrian.”

“Nothing worth mentioning, Master Foy.”

“Out with it, Martin.”

“Well, if you wish to know, I am the son of a Friesland boor.”

“—­And an Englishwoman from Yarmouth:  I know all that.”

“Yes,” repeated Martin, “an Englishwoman from Yarmouth.  She was very strong, my mother; she could hold up a cart on her shoulders while my father greased the wheels, that is for a bet; otherwise she used to make my father hold the cart up while she greased the wheels.  Folk would come to see her do the trick.  When I grew up I held the cart and they both greased the wheels.  But at last they died of the plague, the pair of them, God rest their souls!  So I inherited the farm——­”

“And—­” said Foy, fixing him with his eye.

“And,” jerked out Martin in an unwilling fashion, “fell into bad habits.”

“Drink?” suggested the merciless Foy.

Martin sighed and hung his great head.  He had a tender conscience.

“Then you took to prize-fighting,” went on his tormentor; “you can’t deny it; look at your nose.”

“I did, master, for the Lord hadn’t touched my heart in those days, and,” he added, brisking up, “it wasn’t such a bad trade, for nobody ever beat me except a Brussels man once when I was drunk.  He broke my nose, but afterwards, when I was sober—­” and he stopped.

“You killed the Spanish boxer here in Leyden,” said Foy sternly.

“Yes,” echoed Martin, “I killed him sure enough, but—­oh! it was a pretty fight, and he brought it on himself.  He was a fine man, that Spaniard, but the devil wouldn’t play fair, so I just had to kill him.  I hope that they bear in mind up above that I had to kill him.”

“Tell me about it, Martin, for I was at The Hague at the time, and can’t remember.  Of course I don’t approve of such things”—­and the young rascal clasped his hands and looked pious—­“but as it is all done with, one may as well hear the story of the fight.  To spin it won’t make you more wicked than you are.”

Then suddenly Martin the unreminiscent developed a marvellous memory, and with much wealth of detail set out the exact circumstances of that historic encounter.

“And after he had kicked me in the stomach,” he ended, “which, master, you will know he had no right to do, I lost my temper and hit out with all my strength, having first feinted and knocked up his guard with my left arm——­”