and but'er before you return to Burghley,' insisted Gleda.
Gleda gave her some bread and butter and Elizabeth rested for a few minutes. On the way back to Burghley, Elizabeth again didn't feel well and lost the food that she had eaten. Suddenly, the illness made sense to her. 'I am nay ill,' she almost exclaimed out loud, 'I am with child.' She resolved right then that Richard would be the first to know. This new realization gave her great pleasure and turned her tears of sorrow to tears of joy and she said a silent prayer of thanks to God for this blessing.
Arriving in Burghley, she found her mother and brothers loading the wagon with their few household items and some farming equipment.
'Why are you loading the wagon?' asked Elizabeth.
Her mother was carrying one of their two wooden chairs to the wagon and didn't even look in Elizabeth's direction when she answered. 'The landowner came this morning and told us that we must be off todee,' exclaimed her mother.
'Todee?' asked Elizabeth with some disbelief. 'Why wuld 'e do that to us?' She instinctively placed her hands on her face as though to contain her emotions and gazed around the surroundings that were so familiar to her.
'I 'ate 'im,' proclaimed one of Elizabeth's brothers.
'Shhh, lad,' insisted her mother. She had placed the chair in the wagon and was heading back into the cottage. 'We will start our trip to Trowell. If it rains, we will sleep beneath the wagon.'
'And if it snows...' Elizabeth started to ask. Her mother stopped and faced her for the first time.
'We 'ave no choice, lass. It will nay snow todee and may nay snow for weeks. Either way, we must be off.'
After loading the wagon, they hitched the ox and slowly pulled away from the cottage. Elizabeth's father lay in one corner of the wagon amongst the household items, her two brothers walked, Elizabeth drove the wagon and her mother sat next to her. Elizabeth looked straight ahead, not daring to glance back at the only house that she had ever known. Despite not looking back, she couldn't help but think about the wonderful childhood that she had spent there. The large oak trees that stood guard and the creek that ran nearby were etched into her memory forever.
It was a couple hours before sunset when they left the cottage. Elizabeth wasn't even sure how far it was to Trowell or how long it might take to get there. She had heard of Nottingham, but all she knew concerning it was that Robin Hood had supposedly lived in the woods nearby, a wood called Sherwood Forest. She had heard that the wood was a dangerous place full of robbers. Her father assured her that their route to Trowell would be south of the wood and that there was nothing to fear. Her father was vaguely familiar with the road there, having traveled it once.
The roadway was fairly dry, making travel easier and a little quicker, but they were only able to make it as far as Empingham before it got dark. They stopped for the night at an inn. They had little money, but the innkeeper accepted some potatoes as payment. Elizabeth's father was afraid that someone would steal the wagon and their belongings during the night, so he insisted that Elizabeth's brothers spend the night outside with the wagon.
The next morning as they were preparing to leave the inn, the innkeeper asked them where it was that they were headed. Elizabeth's father did not want to share their plans exactly, so he told him that they were traveling to Oakham.
'Aye, you will 'ave gud weather if you are only going to Oakham,' said the innkeeper.
'Aye, the weather is fair,' replied her father.
'You shuld nay travel with suuch a pret'y lass,' said the innkeeper looking at Elizabeth. 'There are plent'y of robbers in the woods.'
'Nay, we will be fine,' replied Elizabeth's father, but he had been concerned about that exact thing.
After they were outside Empingham, Elizabeth's father told her to stop the wagon.
'Get in that bag, me luv and retrieve sume of me old clothes,' he told Elizabeth. 'Put them on be'ind that tree over there.'
'Nay Father, I will nay wear man's clothing,' protested Elizabeth. 'It is 'eresy. Do you nay recall whot they did to the maiden in France?'
'Aye, boot she wore man's clothing as a woman. You will be wearing the clothing to appear as a boy. No one will know that you are