While the miller and his family sleep, John and Alan think of ways to get revenge. Suddenly, Alan announces that he is going to have that “wench there,” referring to the daughter. His logic is “If at one point a person be aggrieved / Then in another he shall be relieved” (“That gif a man in a point be agreved, / That in another he sal be releved”). John, however, stays in bed lamenting his condition; rResolved finally to not spend the night alone, he gets up and quietly moves the baby and cradle next to his bed. About this time, the miller’s wife gets up to relieve herself; returning to her bed, she feels for the baby’s cradle, which is now beside John’s bed. Thinking this her bed, she climbs in beside John, who immediately “tumbled on her, and on this goode wyf, he layed it on well.”
At dawn, Alan says goodbye to the daughter, who tells him where to find his stolen flour. When Alan goes to wake John, he discovers the cradle and, assuming that he has the wrong bed, hops into the miller’s bed. There, he tells John how he had the daughter three times during the night. “As I have thries in this shorte nyght / Swyved (screwed) the milleres doghter bolt upright.” The miller rises from his bed in a fury. The miller’s wife, thinking that the swearing is coming from one of the students, grabs a club and, mistaking her husband for one of the clerks, strikes him down. Alan and John gather their ground wheat and flour and flee the premises.
