There are two very pithy Scottish proverbial expressions for describing the case of young women losing their chance of good marriages by setting their aims too high. Thus an old lady, speaking of her granddaughter having made what she considered a poor match, described her as having "_lookit at the moon, and lichtit[136] in the midden_." It is recorded again of a celebrated beauty, Becky Monteith, that being asked how she had not made a good marriage, she replied, "_Ye see, I wadna hae the walkers, and the riders gaed by._" _It's ill to wauken sleeping dogs._ It is a bad policy to rouse dangerous and mischievous people, who are for the present quiet. _It is nae mair ferly[137] to see a woman greit than to see a goose go barefit._ A harsh and ungallant reference to the facility with which the softer sex can avail themselves of tears to carry a point. _A Scots mist will weet an Englishman to the skin._ A proverb, evidently of Caledonian origin, arising from the frequent complaints made by English visitors of the heavy mists which hang 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.