Now, regard being had to the fact that “there is seldom smoke except there be, at least, some little fire, the question arises: Is it possible to account, on rational grounds, for any such statement of the worthy person still in being in 1680 as Dr. Williams credits him with?

(Nash’s evidence, in the absence of proof of a continuous tradition, is not one whit more worthy of credence than Dr. Williams’ impalpability.)

It is possible.

For, it is well within the bounds of rational probability that what Mr. Abington said to some person or persons unknown (assuming that he ever said anything whatever) was not that his wife “had writ the Letter,” but that his wife “knew, or thought she knew, who had writ the Letter.”

The way in which to test the matter is this: Supposing, for the sake of argument, that my hypothesis be true, and that Father Oldcorne did actually pen that Letter which was the instrument, not only of the temporal salvation of Mrs. Abington’s brother, the Lord Mounteagle, but also of her father, the Lord Morley, together with many others of her kinsfolk, friends, and acquaintance, as well as of her lawful Sovereign and His Royal Consort, is it, or is it not, probable that Mrs. Abington would guess, in some way or another, the mighty secret?

It is probable.

For let it be remembered who and what Mrs. Abington was.

The Honourable Mary Parker, the daughter of Edward Parker Lord Morley and the Honourable Elizabeth Stanley, was the mother of William Abington, the well-known poet[118] of that name, who was born, in fact, on or about the 5th of November, 1605.

Therefore Mrs. Abington was the mother of a son who was a man of distinguished intellectual parts.

Moreover, seeing that usually it is from the mother that a son’s capabilities are derived rather than from the father, it is more, rather than less, likely that Mrs. Abington herself was a naturally clear-minded, acute, discerning woman, gifted with that marvellous faculty which constitutes cleverness in a woman— sympathetic, imaginative insight.

Now if this were so, Mrs. Abington’s native perspicacity would be surely potent enough to enable her to form a judgment, at once penetrating and accurate, in reference to such a thing as the penmanship of the great Letter— a document which had come home, as events had proved, with such peculiar closeness to her own “business and bosom.”[119]

In these circumstances, may the Lady of Hindlip not, in after days, when the tragic scenes of those fateful years 1605 and 1606 had become a sad, pathetic memory merely, have recalled to mind certain special aspects in the play of the countenance, in the tone of the voice, aye, in the general mien of Father Edward Oldcorne that she had noted shortly from and after the Michaelmas of that unhappy year 1605, forming evidence whence she might draw her own shrewd, wise conclusions?

May not this honourable woman— honourable by nature as well as by name— have recollected that she had then observed that the holy man sought more than hitherto had been his wont the retirement of his “secret chamber?” That, at that period, he seemed more than ever absorbed, nay hidden, in thought?

May she not have recalled that at that “last” Christmastide, too, he, who was by nature so severely yet sweetly just, and the humblest among men, had shown himself disposed to judge those wicked wrong-doers with a mildness and a leniency that assuredly, perforce, betokened— what? I answer, a consciousness of some high prerogative, some kingly right, abiding in him, whereby he was warranted in thus speaking.

Again; did he not then manifest a disposition, remarkable even in him, to act in diametrical opposition to the ordinary way of men, which is so well expressed by the sarcastic, cynical, yet only too true saying, that “the world is ready enough to laugh with a man, but it leaves him to weep alone.” And this, when “a compassionate silence” (save in extraordinary circumstances) was the utmost that Justice and Charity alike would prompt even a Priest and a Jesuit (nay, even a Priest and a Jesuit of the type of Edward Oldcorne) to display towards the wretched, erring victims of that “ineluctabile fatum,” that resistless decree of the Universe— “The guilty suffer.”

Now, I submit, with sure confidence for an affirmative answer, to the judgment of my candid readers— of my candid readers that know something of human nature, its workings, its windings, and its ways— the question: Whether or not it is not merely possible, but probable, that Mrs. Abington divined that stupendous secret, through and by means of the subtle, yet all-potent, mental sympathy, which must have subsisted betwixt herself and the disciplined, exalted, stately soul, who, as a Priest— aye! as a very Prophet— this high-born lady, or at least her spouse, had “counted it all honour and all joy” to have harboured, as a beloved spiritual Father, “elect and precious,” for no less than sixteen years?[120]