g about our hills,
and which are found to annoy the southern traveller as it were
downright rain.

_Keep your ain fish-guts to your ain sea-maws._ This was a favourite
proverb with Sir Walter Scott, when he meant to express the policy of
first considering the interests that are nearest home. The saying
savours of the fishing population of the east cost.

_A Yule feast may be done at Pasch_. Festivities, although usually
practised at Christmas, need not, on suitable occasions, be confined to
any season.

_It's better to sup wi' a cutty than want a spune._ Cutty means anything
short, stumpy, and not of full growth; frequently applied to a
short-handled horn spoon. As Meg Merrilies says to the bewildered
Dominie, "If ye dinna eat instantly, by the bread and salt, I'll put it
down your throat wi' the _cutty spune_."

"_Fules mak feasts and wise men eat 'em,_ my Lord." This was said to a
Scottish nobleman on his giving a great entertainment, and who readily
answered, "Ay, and _Wise men make proverbs and fools repeat 'em._"

_A green Yule[138] and a white Pays[139] mak a fat kirk-yard._ A very
coarse proverb, but may express a general truth as regards the effects
of season on the human frame. Another of a similar character is, _An
air[140] winter maks a sair[141] winter_.

_Wha will bell the cat?_ The proverb is used in reference to a proposal
for accomplishing a difficult or dangerous task, and alludes to the
fable of the poor mice proposing to put a bell about the cat's neck,
that they might be apprised of his coming. The historical application is
well known. When the nobles of Scotland proposed to go in a body to
Stirling to take Cochrane, the favourite of James the Third, and hang
him, the Lord Gray asked, "It is well said, but wha will bell the cat?"
The Earl of Angus accepted the challenge, and effected the object. To
his dying day he was called Archibald Bell-the-Cat.

_Ye hae tint the tongue o' the trump._ "Trump" is a Jew's harp. To lose
the tongue of it is to lose what is essential to its sound.

_Meat and mass hinders nae man._ Needful food, and suitable religious
exercises, should not be spared under greatest haste.

_Ye fand it whar the Highlandman fand the tangs_ (i.e. at the fireside).
A hit at our mountain neighbours, who occasionally took from the
Lowlands--as having found--something that was never lost.

_His head will ne'er rive_ (i.e. tear) _his father's bonnet_. A
picturesque way of expressing