Proximate Landscape. 213 



mission rendered it necessary. How long they re- 

 mained in the tavern is not recorded, but on their 

 return to the cart they were horrified to discover 

 Maggie sitting up in her coffin, the hd of which had 

 not been fastened. She quite recovered, and for the 

 remainder of her life was known by the sobriquet of 

 '* Half-hangit Maggie Dickson." Though the public- 

 house, with the gauze and thread works, have been 

 long since swept away, the Suburban Railway with 

 the "iron horse" has wrought wonders, and the 

 grounds around Peffer Mill bid fair at no distant date 

 to be covered with houses and public works. 



Between Peffer Mill and Bridgend are the " Craig- 

 millar Irrigated Meadows," intersected by the Suburban 

 Railway. Formerly they were called " the King's 

 Meadows," and there is still extant a charter by King 

 James V., dated at Kirkcaldy, September 2, 1536, 

 whereby he " dimits " to his friend and barber, John 

 Murray, the lands called King's Meadows. This was 

 a favourite hunting-ground of the king, being in the 

 centre of the forest of Drumselch. At that period 

 large areas were covered with immense forests of trees, 



