"They couldn't be shunted before, because the coal waggons were in the way."
"Why were the coal waggons there just then?"
"Because an engine had gone on and left them there."
And so on; and so on--engine, and coal waggons, and shunting, and trucks. It was like "the house that Jack built." Nobody had been in fault, apparently, or done anything wrong, except the miserable train that had dashed on to its destruction, and its still more miserable driver, Matthew Cooper.
Cooper came forward and asked leave to give his evidence. The coroner cautioned him; he thought he had better not; it might be used against him. But Cooper persisted; and he stood there to say what he had to say, his pale face, surrounded by its bandages, earnest and anxious.
"I'll say nothing but the truth, sir. If that is to be used against me, why I can't help it. I'd not tell a lie even to screen myself."
He took his own course, and gave his evidence. It was to the effect that the green lights were exhibited as usual that night, not the red. The coroner felt a little staggered. He knew Cooper to be a steady, reliable, truth-telling man. One of the witnesses observed, as if in continuation of what Cooper had just said, that "Mat Cooper wouldn't tell a lie to screen himself from nothing." The coroner had hitherto believed the same.
"Did you look at the lights?" he asked of Cooper.
"I looked at both, sir. The lamp that was at the near end of the station, and the lamp on the signal-post beyond it."
"And you say they were the green lights?"