"No names? Why, there isn't a field in England that hasn't its own
name, sir. I noticed that before I went to sea." He then told Mr.
Fountain the names of his three meadows, and curious names they were.
Two of them were a good deal older than William the Conqueror. David
wrote them on a slip of paper. He then produced a chart. "What is
that, Mr. David?"
"A map of the Melton estate, sir."
"Why, how on earth did you get that?"
"An old shipmate of mine lives in that quarter--got him to make it for
me. Overhaul it, sir; you will find the Melton estate has got all your
three names within a furlong of the mansion house."
"From this you infer--"
"That one of that house came here, and brought the E along with him
that has got dropped somehow since, and, being so far from his
birthplace, he thought he would have one or two of the old names about
him. What will you bet me he hasn't shot more than one brace of
partridges on those fields about Melton when he was a boy? So he
christened your three fields afresh, and the new names took; likely he
made a point of it with the people in the village. For all that, I
have found one old fellow who stands out against them to this day. His
name is Newel. He will persist in calling the field next to your house
Snap Witcheloe. 'That is what my grandfather allus named it,' says he,
'and that is the name it went by afore there was ever a Fountain in
this ere parish.' I have looked in the Parish Register, and I see
Newel's grandfather was born in 1690.
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