Note 386 — WILLIAM BOYD, EARL OF KILMARNOCK. (continued 2)

Mrs. Howison Craufurd, the lady of William Howison Craufurd, Esq., of Craufurdland Castle, Ayrshire. To this Lady I am indebted for much of the information (afforded by her admirable letters) which has been introduced into this Memoir of Lord Kilmarnock. To this lady I addressed an inquiry respecting an original portrait of Lord Kilmarnock. Her efforts to obtain any intelligence of one have been wholly unavailing; and we have been led to the conclusion that, in the fire at Dean Castle, all the portraits of Lord Kilmarnock must have been destroyed; his resemblance, his name, his honour, and his Castle thus becoming extinct at once. At Craufurdland Castle there is a fine portrait of Lord Kilmarnock's brother, his widow and daughter, painted in oils, after a singular fashion, black and white; giving it a ghastly hue. This perhaps accounts for the local tradition near Kilmarnock, "that on hearing of his brother's death, Mr. Boyd's colour fled, and never returned; nor was he ever seen to smile again." A tradition not difficult of belief.

The present Mr. Craufurd, of Craufurdland Castle, represents also the family of Howison of Bræ-head. In Mrs. Howison Craufurd's family an amusing circumstance relative to Lord Lovat occurred. He was one evening in a ball-room, and was paying court to the great-grandmother of that lady. As he was playfully examining, and holding in his hand her diamond solitaire, a voice whispered in his ear, "that Government officers were in pursuit of him; and that he must decamp." Decamp he did, taking with him, perhaps by accident, the costly jewel. The young lady was in the greatest trepidation, and her family were resolved to recover the ornament. Many years after, on his return from France, Lovat, whose character, in no respect, rose above suspicion, was taxed with the robbery, and refunded a sum which gave twenty pounds to each of a host of granddaughters, then in their girlhood.