Her mother stood slowly and wiped her tears. 'I 'ave family near Not'ing'am. It is nay far. Let us go there.'
Elizabeth's father opened his eyes and looked straight at her mother. 'I will nay beg from your family. I will dee at the side of the road first.'
'And shall we dee with you?' posed her mother in a raised voice. 'You and your pride will be our deeth.'
Elizabeth hadn't realized it until now that her mother's family had not approved of her parent's marriage. Elizabeth had never met her mother's family and now it made more sense to her. Not only was the distance measured in miles, but it was also measure in pride.
Her father started coughing violently now and he held his chest in pain. He had lost the energy to argue and just shook his head in reluctant agreement that they should go to his wife's family for help. Their situation was getting critical and without help, they would not last long. They were nearing the end of their meager food and money supply. With winter settling in, if they didn't get help soon, the family would surely be broken up.
A light rain started falling as the family turned the wagon around and slowly made their way back to the only inn for miles around. Their hopes were dashed, but Elizabeth's were crushed.
'ow will Richard find us?' she moaned as the wagon creaked along the roadway.
'Elizabeth,' replied her mother, 'you do nay even know that 'e is yet alive.'
'Boot, I feel that 'e is,'
Elizabeth and her parents spent the night in the inn and her brothers spent the night beneath the wagon, trying as best they could to stay dry. Elizabeth's father could not manage the stairway in the inn, so she and her mother helped him. Before laboring up the stairs, her father asked the innkeeper where the family with the burnt out cottage had gone. He wasn't sure, but thought that they had gone to Worcester.
There was one bed in the room, so Elizabeth slept on the floor and her parents shared the small bed. She had grown accustom to her father's snoring, but his illness seemed to intensify the snoring. Elizabeth awoke to the ringing of the church bells the next morning. Odd, she thought, since she rarely was still in bed when the bells rang in Burghley. Opening her eyes, she could see that the sun was peering through the window covering. 'Strange that Father did nay wake me. I wonder whether 'e is checking on the boys. 'ow culd 'e get down the stairs?', Elizabeth thought to herself. She looked at the bed and noticed that her father was still in bed. Then she realized that she didn't wake at all during the night to his snoring.
Elizabeth got up off the floor and rushed to her father's side to wake him. She reached out to gently shake him and she recoiled. He was stiff and cold to touch. She let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her hands. Then she cried out, 'Mum, 'e is deed! Father is deed!' She sobbed and ran downstairs to find her brothers.
'Lads, comb quickly! 'urry, your father is deed!' she cried.
Returning to the room, they found their mother kneeling on the bed and bent over their father. She was sobbing and apologizing to him for being angry with him the previous day.
'No, Dear God, do nay take 'im from me,' she cried as tears dropped from her face and onto her husband's face. 'I can nay go on withoot 'im.'
Elizabeth and her brothers knelt by the bedside and hugged their mother. Elizabeth felt a huge burden rest upon her shoulders as she realized that her mother really meant what she said. Elizabeth was going to have to be a strength and support for her mother until her brothers grew up some. Her concern for Richard slipped to the recesses of her mind as she considered their plight. She now needed to get her family to Nottingham as quickly as possible.
'Shhh, Mum,' said Elizabeth 'let us be very quiet and not draw more attention to ourselves than needed. We do nay want any trouble in this village where they do nay know us.' She expected that if they were to take him to Nottingham it would be easier to get a priest familiar with the family to give him burial rites and find a