At this the poor baker burst out crying, and entreated to be let off, saying that now indeed he had plenty to complain of, but at this the justice was angrier still. "Then," said he, "you certainly deserve to be flogged for having told an untruth before, when you said you had not. Take him away, and do as I bid."
So they dragged the baker off to the market-place, and made a ring round him, so that he could not escape, and then there came down two or three soldiers with ropes in their hands, and they seized him, and began to beat him before all the crowd.
But by this time all the people were so enraged against him, that a number of them cried, "Let us go to his house and pull it down." So off they ran to the baker's house, and broke the windows and knocked about the furniture, and then some of them fell on the oven, and wrenched off the door, and others seized the pokers and tongs, and smashed in its sides, and in the hurry and scuffle, the little dark man crept out of the oven and scuttled away unseen by any one. But no sooner had he gone than a great change came across the people.
The soldiers on the green stopped beating the baker, and looked at each other aghast, and the Justice called out,
"Stop! What is all this uproar about? And what has this man done that you are beating him without my orders?" and the people in the crowd whispered to each other; "It is true,—what has he done?" and they slunk away, looking ashamed.
The Justice also at first looked somewhat ashamed of himself, but he drew himself up, and looking very important, said, "There, my man, you are forgiven for this once, and now go your way, and see that you behave better in future;" and then he walked away with much dignity.
So the baker was left alone in the market-place, and he cried for rage and pain.
"This all comes of the oven imp," cried he, as he limped home. "Directly I get home I will drive him out of my oven, and away from my house. Better to have a hundred batches of bread spoiled than to be flogged for saying one is happy." But when he reached his house the little dark man was nowhere to be found; there was nought but the broken oven with its sides battered in.
The baker mended the oven, and from that time forth his bread was just like other people's; but for all that he had learnt to be quite contented, for now he knew that there were worse things than having his loaves burnt black, and he was only too well pleased to take his chance with other people, without the help of fairy folk. As for the little black imp, he was never heard of more, and the people in the village soon recovered their good humour, and were just as happy and contented as they had been before they tasted the bread of discontent.
