Chapter 22
Nedda, her blue head-gear trailing, followed along at the boy's side while he passed through the orchard and two fields; and when he threw himself down under an ash-tree she, too, subsided, waiting for him to notice her. "I am here," she said at last. At that ironic little speech Derek sat up. "It'll kill him," he said. "But--to burn things, Derek! To light horrible cruel flames, and burn things, even if they aren't alive!" Derek said through his teeth: "It's I who did it! If I'd never talked to him he'd have been like the others. They were taking him in a cart, like a calf." Nedda got possession of his hand and held it tight. That was a bitter and frightening hour under the faintly rustling ash-tree, while the wind sprinkled over her flakes of the may blossom, just past its prime.
- Writer
