CHAPTER XXII 



GOLDFINCHES AT RYME INTRINSECA 



Yetminster — Ryme Intrinseca — Mobbed by goldfinches — Recent 

 increase of goldfinches in Dorset — Effect of bird-protection 

 orders — Abundance of the goldfinch in Cobbett's days — 

 Goldfinches and thistles: a misleading statement — Re- 

 collections of the Argentine goldfinch — Caged birds — A 

 Spanish poem about a goldfinch — The translator's difficulties 

 — A prose rendering of El Colorin de Filis. 



THERE is much in a name, and when I left 

 Yeovil to run to Dorchester by that lonely 

 beautiful road which takes you by the clear 

 swift Cerne and past the ancient figure of a giant 

 with a club on the down side over against Cerne 

 Abbas, I went a little distance out of my way to look 

 at a small village solely on account of its singular 

 and pretty name. Or rather two villages — Yet- 

 minster and Ryme Intrinseca. Who would not go a 

 dozen miles out of his road for the pleasure of seeing 

 places with such names! At the first I was unlucky, 

 since the only inhabitant I made acquaintance with 

 was an unprepossessing voluble old woman with 

 greedy eyes who, though not too poor, at once set 

 herself to conjure a shilling out of my pocket. In the 

 end we quarrelled and I went away regretting I had 

 met her, seeing that her unpleasing image would be 

 associated in my mind with the picture of Yetminster 



— its noble, ancient church standing in its wide green 



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