"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."
"Did you look at the signal light?" inquired Mary Jupp, who was always practical. "Perhaps you--you might, you know, Cooper--have passed it without looking just for once."