'Tom, Tom,' panted a shrill voice behind, 'why will ye be so franzy? These be no gipsy lads. Look at their clothes a-dryin'!'
The farmer's wife, well knowing her husband's impetuous temper, had followed up, and at sight of her Dick tucked himself away behind a wide-stemmed beech.
The farmer looked down at the heap of steaming clothes, and was struck with the force of his wife's remark.
'Why, 'tis a sort o' uniform,' he muttered.
'O' course it's a uniform,' cried Chippy, who had stood his ground wrapped in his blanket and flourishing the tomahawk. 'It's the uniform o' Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts, an' what ye want to come 'ere for an' fetch my mate one acrost the ribs I'm blest if I know.'
'Bring my blanket here, Chippy,' called out Dick from his refuge. 'I dropped it in my hurry.'
'Why, ye see, I thought 'twor gipsy tramps startin' a fire in this copse, an' I've forbid it,' said the farmer slowly, scratching his head, and gradually getting hold of the idea that he had made a full-sized mistake.
'Tramps!' snorted Chippy in scorn, taking Dick's blanket, and marching across to his friend. 'D'ye reckon we look like tramps?' He simply bellowed the question, for he was immensely proud of his new scout's uniform, and quite forgot that at present he was arrayed only in a blanket.
'They've been in the wet, and they're dryin' their clothes,' went on the farmer's wife. 'Come home, Tom, an' leave 'em be; they'll do no harm.'
The farmer was already regretting his hasty blow, but, being a man who could never be made to express the opinion that he was in the wrong, he said nothing, merely turned away, and beat a retreat.