Early the next morning he opened his house. As soon as the door was unlocked in came the men from the forest, and they kept on coming till the bar-room was full. Then, while they were making a great noise, talking very loud, and calling for drink, the landlord rapped on the top of the bar and cried:
“Silence, and listen to me! You men have been coming here and doing as you pleased, until you seem to think the house belongs to you, and that you can turn people out of it whenever you like. But I am the one who has to pay the rent, and I think it is for me to say who shall come and who shall go. And now I say that I want you to go and never come back.”
As soon as the landlord had spoken in this firm way the men out of the forest—who, in spite of their boasting, were great cowards—began to steal off one by one, until they were all gone; at which the landlord was glad, for he thought he had gotten rid of them altogether. But in this he was mistaken, for in a few days they were back again, standing about the doors and watching for a chance to get in.
To keep them out the landlord shut up all but the front door, and tried to keep his eye on that. But so impudent had the men grown that they began to climb into the windows when no one was looking. Then the landlord sent for the blacksmith and had iron bars put across every window. But after he had done this the men even got up on the roof in some way, and came down the chimney like so many sweeps; at which the landlord told his hired man to build a hot fire, and to keep it blazing no matter how much wood it burned.