Smeaton himself received these rumours for no more than they were worth; and, perhaps, did not yield them even sufficient credit. Mar had, it is true, taken possession of Perth; his forces had certainly greatly increased; and the Master of Sinclair, one of his officers, had seized a small store of arms at Burntisland. The forces of the government, too, at Stirling, were quite inadequate, in point of numbers, to cope with a regular army, commanded by a man of skill and experience; but Mar was totally deficient in both these points; and his army consisted of a mere mob of brave men, with little discipline and small cohesion amongst them. True was it, also, that General Whetham, who remained in command at Stirling till the middle of September, had shown but little ability to encounter the grave and dangerous circumstances in which he was placed; but on the side of the Jacobites all the advantages of number, zeal, and fiery courage, were more than counterbalanced by the incapacity of the commander, and the insubordination of the troops; while, on the part of the government, numerous bodies of disciplined soldiers, and officers of decision, experience, and courage, were hurrying to the scene of action, and preparing to crush the insurrection which had been already suffered to proceed too far. Vainly did Smeaton ask for tidings of the Earl of Stair, till, on the day which I have mentioned, a farmer told him, somewhat sullenly, that two regiments of dragoons belonging to the Earl of Stair had passed the border that morning, and that there was an ill-looking fellow at their head, with a number of lackeys in the rear, whom he doubled not was the Earl himself and his servants. This news seemed sufficient; and, without delay, he hurried on till nightfall, gaining information of the march of these troops as he proceeded, till, on the best opinion he could form, he judged that they could not be much more than one march in advance. The place where he was obliged to halt could hardly be called a hamlet, but rather a group of small farm-houses gathered together in a rich valley amongst the hills. No inn, no place of public entertainment whatever, was to be found; but the good farmers of the place not only willingly took in the travellers in separate parties, but seemed almost to expect some such visitation. Nods and hints were not wanting to signify that the cause of their guest's movements was known; and the worthy Northumbrian, at whose house Smeaton and Richard Newark were lodged, with their two servants, whispered in the ear of the young nobleman, that it would be better for him to keep quiet where he was, the whole of the next day, as Lord Stair's dragoons were at Wooler, and there was some talk of their halting there to refresh, before they proceeded north.