The miller at Aikwood-mill had a whole hill of kiln-seeds, or shealings of oats, thrown out in a heap adjoining to the mill. Ere ever our yeomen knew what they were doing from the time they mounted, they were all lying in this immense heap of kiln-seeds, perfectly dizzy and dumfoundered, and setting up their heads from among them with the same sort of staring stupid attempt at consideration as the heads of so many frogs which may be seen newly popped up out of a marsh. The bedesmen were a-head of them to the end of the course, and drew up by wheeling their horses round the kiln as if it had been a winning-post; but the yeomen's horses, in making the wheel, threw their riders, one by one, with a jerk over head and ears among the loose heap of seeds, and galloping off around the corner of the hill, they never saw another hair of their tails. The miller came running out from his mill with his broad dusty bonnet; the smoky half-roasted kiln-man out from his logie; the mill-maidens came skipping from the meal-trough, as white as lilies; the rest of the warden's men, and the four sable dignitaries of the church came also, and all of them stood in a ring round our dismounted troops, some asking one question, some another, but all in loud fits of laughter. Their wits could not be rallied in an instant; and all that they could do or say was to blow the seeds out of their mouths, with which they were literally filled, and utter some indefinite sentences, such as, "Rather briskish yauds these same!" "May the like o' mine never be crossed by man again!" "Hech! but they are the gear for the lang road!" "What's become o' them? I wad like to take a right look o' them for aince." "Do ye want to look if they have mark o' mouth, Will? You may look at some o' these that came foremost then. Yours are aff wi' their tails on their rigging; there are some cheated if ever you see mair o' them." Will Martin looked at the abbot's horse; but when he saw the glance of his eye, he would not have taken him by the jaws to have looked his mouth for all Christendom.