On the top were two figures of wolves which John Jones supposed to
be those of foxes. The wolf of Chirk is not intended to be
expressive of the northern name of its proprietor, but as the
armorial bearing of his family by the maternal side, and originated
in one Ryred, surnamed Blaidd or Wolf from his ferocity in war,
from whom the family, which only assumed the name of Middleton in
the beginning of the thirteenth century, on the occasion of its
representative marrying a rich Shropshire heiress of that name,
traces descent.
The wolf of Chirk is a Cambrian not a Gothic wolf, and though "a
wolf of battle," is the wolf not of Biddulph but of Ryred.
CHAPTER LV
A Visitor - Apprenticeship to the Law - Croch Daranau - Lope de
Vega - No Life like the Traveller's.
ONE morning as I sat alone a gentleman was announced. On his
entrance I recognised in him the magistrate's clerk, owing to whose
good word, as it appeared to me, I had been permitted to remain
during the examination into the affair of the wounded butcher. He
was a stout, strong-made man, somewhat under the middle height,
with a ruddy face, and very clear, grey eyes. I handed him a
chair, which he took, and said that his name was R-, and that he
had taken the liberty of calling, as he had a great desire to be
acquainted with me.
