“I am Lizzy, who are you?” she asked to try and calm the poor girl.
“My name is…Anne,” was the timid reply between tears.
“Anne, I must free the horses first. If I do not, they will move the coach and cause it to crash down into the gully. Please be brave and wait for me, I will be as fast as I am able,” Elizabeth told the girl.
She did not wait for an answer. As she approached the horses, she made clicking noises with her tongue just like she had heard the Bennet coachman do many times. Thankfully she had paid attention the times she had seen her father’s team hitched and unhitched to the traces.
The noise calmed the horses somewhat as Elizabeth approached them gingerly from the front. She knew they needed to see her and accept she meant them no harm before going behind them to free them.
As soon as she felt she hadintroducedherself to the horses, still making clicking noises, and adding in some clucking ones as well, Elizabeth made her way to where the team was fastened to the traces.
She would not be able to disconnect them as even though the team had somewhat calmed, there was still forward pressure. With difficulty, she had the horses take a step back to take the tension from the buckles.
It took some minutes, but Elizabeth managed to free the team. She took the reins the coachman had held, and led them some yards away to the other side of the road and fastened the reins to the trunk of a tree. The horses sensed they were safe and seemed to nicker their thanks to their saviour.
“Please help…me, Lizzy,” Anne called out as the coach slid some inches towards the gully as the remains of the tree began to give way.
Elizabeth knew there was only one way to save Anne, and hopefully her father if he was still alive. She ran back to her cart and retrieved the rope. “Anne, if I pass you some rope through one of the windows, are you able to pull it and then pass it back to me from the window on the other side of the door?” Elizabeth enquired.
“I-I think so,” Anne averred.
With the tilted angle and the fact she was rather petite, Elizabeth knew she would not be able to reach the window as things stood right then. She reached a decision, there was only one way.
She tied the end of the rope into a loop and inserted her left arm into it. She had seen one rear wheel and its axle were broken, so she went to the front wheel and used it to climb up—slowly so as not to cause the coach to move.
Elizabeth made her way onto the step. “Anne, I am here, can you take the rope from me?” Elizabeth called out.
A petrified looking girl showed her face at the window, she had straight brown hair and deep blue eyes. “I-I a-am…h-here, Lizzy,” Anne managed.
Very slowly while holding onto the door handle with her right hand, she allowed the loop to slip down her left arm until she caught it in that hand. Elizabeth handed the loop to Anne.
Now she had a line of sight into the cabin, she could see Anne’s father lying on the floor with blood on his head.
“Now Anne, I will jump down, you pull the rope until you are able to push the loop through that window.” Elizabeth inclined her head to the smashed window she intended.
With that, she jumped down and saw how the rope began to be pulled into the interior. Her problem now was Hector was not large or strong enough to pull against the weight of the carriage. There was only one option, the team of carriage horses.
Anne screamed in fear as she felt the coach move again, just as she slipped the loop out of the window Lizzy had instructed her to.
Knowing she had no time to calm Anne now, Elizabeth pulled the rope and then made a loop at the end without one. As quickly as she could, she untied the team from the tree and led them to stand with their tail-ends towards the side of the coach.
She buckled the loops to the tack at the point where it had been connected to the traces. Climbing atop the lead horse, she urged the team forward and tested her loops as they pulled against them. They were holding. At that moment the remainder of the tree gave way. Thanks to Elizabeth having had the team take up the slack, the carriage hardly moved.
Seeing the tree give way, Anne thought her and Papa’s last moments in the mortal world were nigh. The coach barely moved! As scared as she was, Anne looked out of the window on the roadside to see the team of horses pulling against the ropes.
Slowly, but surely, Elizabeth had the horses pull until the wheels on her side of the carriage were back on solid ground. She did not stop the horses until the other wheels were situated on the road, even the rear one which was shattered.
Before she released the horses, Elizabeth dismounted and went to the other side of the conveyance to make sure nothing remained hanging over the edge. With that confirmed, she backed up the team a little and then released the rope. As fast as she could, she tied the horses to the tree again and then pulled the rope out of the cabin.
Without the coach impeding her field of vision, Elizabeth had seen the coachman’s broken body on the rocks below. She decided to say nothing to the fearful girl within the conveyance.
When she opened the door she could hear Anne’s father moaning. He was alive!
“Anne, you are safe now. I need to get help,” Elizabeth stated. “I will ride Hector to Mr. Humbolt’s farm, it is but a half mile from here, and he will send some of his sons to call my papa and go into Meryton to call Mr. Jones and other men to help.”
It was hard to accept she and Papa were alive and not at the bottom of the gully, but Anne nodded. “Thank you, Lizzy,” Anne said quietly as she cried tears of relief.
It was the work of moments for her to unhitch Hector from the cart. Soon Elizabeth was galloping on her way to get help.
