Lord Seton conducted his royal mistress to his own castle at West Niddry, distant seven miles from South Queen's Ferry, where she partook of his hospitality, and enjoyed the repose of a few hours, after her moonlight flitting. West Niddry now forms part of the fair domain of the Earl of Hopeton. The roofless shell of the stately castle, which afforded the first safe resting-place to the fugitive sovereign is still in existence. The changes of the last few years have conducted the railroad line between Edinburgh and Glasgow in close proximity to the ruins of the feudal fortress, which gave rest and shelter to the royal fugitive, after her escape from Lochleven. The gray mouldering pile, in its lonely desolation, arrests for a moment the attention of the musing moralist or antiquarian among the passengers in the trains that thunder onward to their appointed goal through solitudes that recall high and chivalric visions of the past. But Niddry Castle should be visited in a quiet hour by the historical pilgrim, who would retrace in fancy the last bright scene of Mary Stuart's life, when, notwithstanding the forced abdication which had transferred the regal diadem of Scotland to the unconscious brow of her baby-boy, she stood a queen once more among the only true nobles of her realm, those whom English gold had not corrupted, nor successful traitors daunted. One window in Niddry Castle was, within the memory of many persons in the neighborhood, surmounted with the royal arms of Scotland, together with a stone entablature, which, though broken, is still in existence, in the orchard of the adjacent grange, inscribed in ancient letters with the day of the month and the date of the year, and even the age of George Lord of Seton, at the memorable epoch of his life when the beauteous majesty of Scotland, whom he had so honorable a share in emancipating from her cruel bondage, slept beneath his roof in safety. Lord Seton had been an old and faithful servant of his queen. He was the master of the royal household, and had been present at her nuptials with the beloved husband of her youth, King Francis II., of France. On her return to Scotland, after the death of that sovereign, Mary offered to advance Seton to the dignity of an earldom, but being the premier baron in parliament, he refused to be the puisne earl, giving humble thanks to her majesty for her proffered grace at the same time. Mary then wrote the following extempore distich in Latin and also in French: "_Sunt comites ducesques denique reges; Setoni dominum sit satis mihi._" which, in plain English, may be rendered thus: "Though earls and dukes, and even kings there be, Yet Seton's noble lord sufficeth me."