Newton village itself has little interest, but a small hillside obelisk on the right calls for passing notice. It marks the spot where two friends were in the habit of meeting in the long ago. The one lived at Newton and the other at Little Shelford. Every day for many years they met at this spot, and when one died the survivor erected this memorial. The left-hand hillside also has its interest, for the commonplace brick building on the hilltop is all that remains of one of a line of semaphore telegraph stations in use between London and Cambridge over a hundred years ago. A descending road brings us from this point to a junction with the Royston route to Cambridge, at Harston. XVIII THE Royston route to Cambridge now demands attention. Harking back to Puckeridge, we have by this road certainly the most difficult way, for eight of the eleven miles between Puckeridge and Royston lead, with few and unimportant intervals, steadily uphill, from the deep valley of the Rib up to the tremendous and awe-inspiring climax of Royston Downs; from whose highest point, on Reed Hill, the road drops consistently for three miles in a staggering descent into Royston town. At West Mill, where the valley opens out on the left, the road continues on the shoulder of the hill, with the village and the railway lying down below; a sweetly pretty scene. West Mill is a name whose sound is distinctly modern, but the place is of a venerable age, vouched for by its ancient church, whose architecture dates back to the early years of the thirteenth century. It is the fashion to spell the place-name in one word--Westmill--an ugly and altogether objectionable form. [Illustration: WEST MILL.]