- John and Aleyn walk back to the miller's house, as weary and wet as beasts in the rain.
- "Alas," says John, "the day that I was born! Now we will be subject to mockery and scorn."
- "Our corn has been stolen. Both the warden and our fellow scholars will call us fools, and so will the miller, alas!"
- So John complains as he walks along the way toward the mill with the horse's reins in his hands.
- He finds the miller sitting by his hearth.
- It is nightfall, and the students can go no further.
- They beseech the miller to offer them food and lodging for the night.
- The miller says, "If there is any, you shall certainly have your part."
- "My house is very small, but you have learned mathematics."
- "Surely, with your theorems, you can make a space a mile wide out of twenty feet."
- "See if this place suffices for you, or with your rhetoric make more room, as is your custom."
- "Now, Symond," says John, "by Saint Cuthbert, you are always merry, and this is a fair answer."
- "I have heard said, 'Man shall take one of two things: such as he finds, or such as he brings with him."
- "But I especially ask you, dear host, for some meat, drink, and cheer."
- "And we will pay for it in full, for with an empty hand men take no hawks."
- "Look, here's our silver, ready to be spent."
- This miller sends his daughter into town for ale and bread, and roasts a goose for the clerks.
- He stables their horse so that it doesn't get free again.
- In his own chamber, not ten feet from his own bed, he makes a sleeping-space for them from sheets and good blankets.
- His daughter has a bed to herself in the same chamber, for there is no other bedchamber in the house.
- Everyone eats and talks, taking solace in strong ale.
- About midnight, they all go to bed.
- This miller is all pale from drinking so much. He hiccups and snores loudly.
- He goes to bed, and his wife with him.
- She is as light and jolly as a jaybird in feather, so well has she wet her whistle with ale.
- She sets the cradle at the foot of the bed, the better to rock it and nurse the baby.
- When they've drunk everything there is in the crock, the daughter goes to bed.
- John and Aleyn go to bed; they don't need any sleeping pills.
- This miller has drunk so much ale that he snores like a horse in his sleep.
- He doesn't seem to notice any of the air coming out of his tail-end, either.
- His wife joins in the chorus, so that men might hear her snores a furlong away.
- Their daughter also snores.