There’s aye water where the stirkie[147] drouns. Where certain effects are produced, there must be some causes at work—­a proverb used to show that a universal popular suspicion as to an obvious effect must be laid in truth.

Better a finger aff than aye waggin’.  This proverb I remember as a great favourite with many Scotch people.  Better experience the worst, than have an evil always pending.

Cadgers are aye cracking o’ crook saddles[148] has a very Scottish aspect, and signifies that professional men are very apt to talk too much of their profession.

The following is purely Scotch, for in no country but Scotland are singed sheep heads to be met with:  He’s like a sheep head in a pair o’ tangs.

As sure’s deeth.  A common Scottish proverbial expression to signify either the truth or certainty of a fact, or to pledge the speaker to a performance of his promise.  In the latter sense an amusing illustration of faith in the superior obligation of this asseveration to any other, is recorded in the Eglinton Papers[149].  The Earl one day found a boy climbing up a tree, and called him to come down.  The boy declined, because, he said, the Earl would thrash him.  His Lordship pledged his honour that he would not do so.  The boy replied, “I dinna ken onything about your honour, but if you say as sure’s deeth I’ll come doun.”

Proverbs are sometimes local in their application.

The men o’ the Mearns canna do mair than they may. Even the men of Kincardineshire can only do their utmost—­a proverb intended to be highly complimentary to the powers of the men of that county.

I’ll mak Cathkin’s covenant wi’ you, Let abee for let abee. This is a local saying quoted often in Hamilton.  The laird of that property had—­very unlike the excellent family who have now possessed it for more than a century—­been addicted to intemperance.  One of his neighbours, in order to frighten him on his way home from his evening potations, disguised himself, on a very wet night, and, personating the devil, claimed a title to carry him off as his rightful property.  Contrary to all expectation, however, the laird showed fight, and was about to commence the onslaught, when a parley was proposed, and the issue was, “Cathkin’s covenant, Let abee for let abee.”

When the castle of Stirling gets a hat, the Carse of Corntown pays for that. This is a local proverbial saying; the meaning is, that when the clouds descend so low as to envelope Stirling Castle, a deluge of rain may be expected in the adjacent country.

I will conclude this notice of our proverbial reminiscences, by adding a cluster of Scottish proverbs, selected from an excellent article on the general subject in the North British Review of February 1858.  The reviewer designates these as “broader in their mirth, and more caustic in their tone,” than the moral proverbial expressions of the Spanish and Italian:—­