The road to Ipswich was the scene, in the second half of the seventeenth century, shortly after the first coaches had started running, of many highway robberies. The borough of Colchester was deeply concerned at this lawlessness, and in 1679 three men were rewarded with £6, 8s. between them "for apprehending those y^t robbed the Ipswich coach." Again, in September 1698, three men were rewarded "for pursuen hiewaymen," and for "going to Ardlegh" on that business; but as they received only two shillings each and an extra shilling for "drinck," it looks as though the pursuit was unsuccessful. [Illustration: COLCHESTER.] The high road, to which we have now returned, has already been described as an excellent highway, but Dilbridge, a hamlet, and a roadside inn on what was once Ardleigh Heath, alone break its solitude. It has, however, the advantage of commanding the best general view of Colchester, with the inevitable Jumbo prominent, and the new-risen Town Hall tower in rivalry with it. Suddenly, when six miles from Colchester, the road changes its character and drops sharply down by an almost precipitous descent, to where a lazy river is seen flowing picturesquely in loops and bends between the grey-green foliage of willows lining either bank. It flows through a land of rich green meadows and yellow cornfields; a land, too, of noble elms and oaks. In the far distance the waters of a salt estuary sparkle in the sun, while in between, from this Pisgah height, rises the tall tower of a church. The river is the Stour, dividing Essex and Suffolk, and the pleasant vale, the Vale of Dedham. The estuary is that of the Stour at Manningtree, and the church tower that of Dedham. This, indeed, is the Constable Country, and that fact explains the homelike and familiar look it wears, even to the stranger. Constable, born close by at East Bergholt, painted these scenes lovingly for over forty years, and remained constant to his native vale all his life. By the magic power that comes of sympathy, he transferred the spirit of these lanes and fields and trees to canvas as faithfully as he did their form and colour; with the result that the veriest stranger viewing them becomes reminiscent.