The church has a treasure of sorts in the musty, dusty old theological library, stored away in the parvise chamber, over the porch. It is a treasure not likely to be greatly coveted, nor are its constituent volumes frequently read, consisting, as they do, of dull black-letter discourses on just those religious matters in which the learned are of necessity as ignorant as the veriest clod. Not even the best-equipped of those disputants could pierce the veil that hides from us the other world, and now they are gone hence and acquired that knowledge, or just become extinct, they cannot enlighten ourselves. All they could do was to raise cloudy disputations, and the dust one bangs out of their ponderous folios is typical of their useless labours. A more desirable treasure is the ancient muniment-chest kept jealously under lock and key in the vestry. It is a weighty affair, covered with gilt lead, in perforated patterns, and secured with five locks. Inside the heavy lid are barbarically coloured paintings of the Crucifixion, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. John, St. Peter, and St. Paul. An early morning bell-ringing custom of immemorial antiquity is still maintained at Newport, but happily not with all its old-time severity. It was not until 1875 that the local revolt broke out, and the four o’clock-in-the-morning bell-ringing during the winter was modified, and replaced by an eight in the morning peal in the months between Michaelmas and Lady Day. Bell-ringing at Newport was wont to be greatly favoured, for there was a nightly curfew, followed by a number of strokes corresponding with the day of the month. Then there was the “gleaners’ bell,” at harvest-time, rung to tell the poor the corn had been carried and they might go into the fields and glean. But modern agricultural machinery leaves nothing to be gathered up, and so gleaning is a lost chance XIII AMONG the many points of interest in Newport, the still-surviving “Newport Toll” is certainly not least. In these latter days, when traffic fares the road unhindered, all public roads are toll-free—except the road through Newport. Pedestrians and cyclists in general, and the whole of the traffic from certain specified neighbouring villages are exempt; but waggons from elsewhere pay 2_d._ each, forwards and backwards; higglers’ horses, ½_d._ each; and sheep and all other cattle, 4_d._ per score. The exempted places are: Newport, Wicken, Saffron Walden, Great and Little Chesterford, the Wendens, Quendon, and Widdington.