In 1776 Johnson introduced his friend Boswell to Dr. Taylor, and the next year that hero-worshipper was invited, on the instance of Dr. Johnson, to make a longer stay. He remained a fortnight. At his departure for the north he hired a post-chaise at the still-existing “Green Man” inn, which has absorbed the “Black’s Head” since then and added the name of that extinct house to its own. Boswell describes the landlady of the “Green Man” as a “mighty civil gentlewoman.” Indeed she was! She gave him a humble curtsey, and an engraving of her house, upon which she had written: “M. Kilingley’s duty waits upon Mr. Boswell, is exceedingly obliged to him for this favour; whenever he comes this way, hopes for the continuance of the same. Would Mr. Boswell name this house to his extensive acquaintance, it would be a singular favour conferred on one who has it not in her power to make any other return but her most grateful thanks and sincerest prayers for his happiness in time and in blessed eternity. Tuesday morn.” There does not seem to have been an “Amen” at the end of this, but it is certainly a “felt want.” The gallows sign of the house boldly straddles the narrow street, with the “Green Man” sign pendant from it, and a huge “Black’s Head,” with glaring eyes and a gaudily painted turban, above. XXXI [Sidenote: _CHOICE OF ROADS_] Leaving Ashbourne, the traveller has still a choice of routes to Manchester. He may go by the bleak and lofty road across the Derbyshire moorlands, with scarce a house for many miles to keep him company, by Newhaven Inn, and in the solemn companionship of the Roman road and the prehistoric tumuli, on to Buxton and by Whaley Bridge to Stockport; or he may choose the way by Leek and Macclesfield to Stockport, which is the old mail-coach route, and therefore pre-eminently _the_ Manchester Road. The Buxton route was, however, the earlier of the two, and only fell out of use after 1762, when the road by Leek and Macclesfield was improved and turnpiked. A better surface than that of this route could not be denied, but the stark loneliness of it, its aloofness from most human interests—it runs as it were along the roof of the world—are rather ghastly. How the isolated inns—the “Jug and Glass,” the “Newhaven Inn,” the “Bull-i’-Thorn,” and the “Old Duke of Cumberland”—pick a living it is difficult to tell.