Meantime the garrison had one source of confidence in their extremity, on which sailors are more apt to reckon than landsmen. They trusted to the _luck_ of their commandant. Never had the stout veteran who had fought, in 1706, at Ramilies, been either sick, or wounded. He had never been in any battle that the English did not win. Yet it was deemed prudent not to allow any means of aid to be neglected, in so pressing a danger as the state of the siege presented. The Earl of Crawford was then supposed to be at Dunkeld, having the command both of the British troops and of a body of Hessians who had lately been marched from Edinburgh. It was resolved to send to that nobleman for aid. The Duke of Atholl's gardener, a man named Wilson, undertook that dangerous embassy; he was charged with a letter from Sir Andrew to the Earl, and was allowed to take his choice of any horse in the Castle.[184] Before Sir Andrew and his starving garrison could gain intelligence of the fate of Wilson, or could have heard the result of his enterprise, a strange reverse in their affairs took place. On the morning of the first of April, not a single Highlander was to be seen by any of the guards on duty. All had vanished; and a visit from the young woman from the inn at Blair shortly followed their disappearance. From her, the garrison heard that Lord George had, in fear of the arrival of troops from Dunkeld, suddenly withdrawn with all his followers. The old Sir Andrew, nevertheless, fearful of some stratagem, would not allow his garrison to sally out: they were shut up until the following day, when the Earl of Crawford appeared before the castle, and relieved all fears. The officers and soldiers were then drawn out, with Sir Andrew at the head of it. "My Lord," cried the old soldier, "I am very glad to see you; but, _by all that's good_, you are come too late, and we have nothing to give you to eat!" To which Lord Crawford answered courteously; and laughing, begged of Sir Andrew to partake of such provisions as he had brought with him. That day Sir Andrew and the Earl, and their officers, dined in the summer-house of the garden at Blair, in high spirits at the result of the siege. The disappearance of Lord George Murray was soon explained; nor can the statement of those reasons which induced him to abandon the siege of Blair be given in a more satisfactory manner than as they were stated by Lord Elcho; to whom they must have appeared satisfactory, otherwise he would not have left so clear and decisive a testimony in favour of Lord George Murray's motives. It is worthy of remark, that Lord Elcho's statement agrees in every particular with that addressed some years afterwards by Lord George to Mr. Murray of Abercairney, and now preserved in the Jacobite Memoirs by Forbes.[185]