"They say at the station here that they exhibited the danger signal, red, and that the train dashed on regardless of it," said Colonel West. "I went to the inn this morning where some of the wounded are lying, and there I found the driver--as they told me he was--on a mattress on the floor. 'How did this happen?' I said to him. 'I don't know how it happened, sir,' he replied; 'but I declare there was no red signal up to stop me; the green light was up as usual.' That was the first I had heard about the red light," continued the colonel; "but I find the man said true, and that the whole blame is laid upon him. Now it happens that I was in my garden last night when the smash came, just over on the other side of the line, and I can bear the man's assertion out. It was the green light that was up, and not the red." "Shameful!" exclaimed Mr. Lake, rising up at once against the injustice in his impulsive way. "I hope, colonel, you will stand by the man." "You may be sure of that. I'd transport a reckless driver for life, if I could, but I would never see an innocent man falsely accused." Having nothing to do with themselves, they strolled into the village, such as it was, the colonel with them. At the door of the small inn, whose floors had been put into requisition the previous night, on the green bench running under the windows, sat the driver of the engine, his head tied up with a white cloth and his arm in a sling. Colonel West introduced him: "Cooper, the driver." Cooper was a man of notoriety that day. "Why, Cooper!" cried Mr. Lake in surprise the moment he saw the patient, "was it you who drove the engine last night?" "Yes, sir, it was me," replied Cooper, standing up to answer, but sinking back at once from giddiness. "And I can only say I wish it had been somebody else, if they are going to persist in accusing me of causing the accident wilfully." Mr. Lake knew him well. He was a young man, a native of Katterley, of very humble origin, but of good natural intelligence and exemplary character. It was only about a month that he had been promoted to be a driver; before that he was a stoker. "I need not have speculated on whether the driver was overcome by strong liquor, had I known who it was," said Mr. Lake. "He tells me he never drinks," interposed Colonel West. "Never, sir," said Cooper. "Water, and tea, and coffee, and those sort of things but nothing stronger. I had a brother, sir, who drank himself to death before he was twenty, and it was a warning for me. This gentleman and these ladies knew him." Mr. Lake nodded acquiescence. "So they say the red light was up, do they, Cooper, and you would not see it?" "I hear they are saying so at the station, sir; but it's very wrong. There was no other light up but the one that is generally up, the green. Should I have gone steaming on, risking death to myself and my passengers, if the danger light had been up? No, sir, it's not likely."