Tuesday, October 31st.

The inn we stayed at was a famous one in the days of the stagecoaches, and bore the double name “The Green Man and the Black’s Head Royal Hotel” on a sign which was probably unique, for it reached across the full width of the street.  A former landlord having bought another coaching-house in the town known as the “Black’s Head,” transferred the business to the “Green Man,” when he incorporated the two signs.  We were now on the verge of Dr. Johnson’s country, the learned compiler of the great dictionary, who visited the “Green Man” in company with his companion, James Boswell, whose Life of Dr. Johnson is said to be the finest biography ever written in the English language.  They had a friend at Ashbourne, a Dr. Taylor, whom they often visited, and on one occasion when they were all sitting in his garden their conversation turned on the subject of the future state of man.  Johnson gave expression to his views in the following words, “Sir, I do not imagine that all things will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the ways of Providence will be explained to us very gradually.”

[Illustration:  “THE GREEN MAN AND BLACK’S HEAD.”]

Boswell stayed at the “Green Man” just before journeying with Dr. Johnson to Scotland, and was greatly pleased by the manners of the landlady, for he described her as a “mighty civil gentlewoman” who curtseyed very low as she gave him an engraving of the sign of the house, under which she had written a polite note asking for a recommendation of the inn to his “extensive acquaintance, and her most grateful thanks for his patronage and her sincerest prayers for his happiness in time and in blessed eternity.”  The present landlady of the hotel appeared to be a worthy successor to the lady who presided there in the time of Boswell, for we found her equally civil and obliging, and, needless to say, we did justice to a very good breakfast served up in her best style.

[Illustration:  IN ASHBOURNE CHURCH IN YE OLDEN TIME.]

The Old Hall of Ashbourne, situated at the higher end of the town, was a fine old mansion, with a long history, dating from the Cockayne family, who were in possession of lands here as early as the year 1372, and who were followed by the Boothby family.

The young Pretender, “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” who had many friends in England, stayed a night at the Hall in 1745, and the oak door of the room in which he slept was still preserved.  He and his Highlanders never got farther than Derby, when he had to beat a hurried retreat, pursued by the Duke of Cumberland.  Prince Charlie, to avoid the opposing army at Stafford and Lichfield, turned aside along the Churnet valley, through Leek, and so to Ashbourne.  At Derby he called a Council of War, and learned how the Royal forces were closing in upon him, so that reluctantly a retreat was ordered.  Then began a period of plundering and rapine.  The Highlanders