So the landlord took them up stairs into the best room on his second floor, and gave them the key of the door, that they might lock themselves in and stay as long as they wanted. But the bad men had seen them going up, and presently they seized the great clubs that they always carried, and hurried up after them.
“Let us in!” they cried.
But without waiting for any answer they broke down the door and rushed at the men who were sitting around the table, until they had to run for their lives.
That night, after everybody had gone to bed and the landlord had locked up the inn, as he sat alone by the fire, he said to himself:
“I must do one thing or the other. I must turn away either the good men or the bad men, for it is plain they cannot both come to my house. Which shall it be?”
After thinking a while longer he said:
“I admit that the people from the forest buy a good deal more out of my bar-room—wine, brandy, and whiskey—but then they get drunk and break my furniture, and often refuse to pay for what they have had; so that, in truth, I do not make any great profit out of them, after all—not near enough to make up for the bad example they set my children and the bad name they give my house. But the people from the farms, though they do not buy any brandy, or whiskey, buy a good deal more of bread and meat, and they always pay for what they get. By the end of the year I am sure that I make more out of them than I do out of the others. Then they are kind to my family, and they make my house respectable and give it a good name. I am resolved what to do, and which to turn away. These shall stay, and the others shall go; and to-morrow I will tell them.”
So, after making up his mind, he went to bed and slept all night.