No happier hours have I spent in Moville than when I have been talking with old friends of all classes about life in their childhood, and also about what their parents used to tell. All that follows is gathered from them, and be it remembered that it covers the entire life of Moville itself. For example, one of my oldest friends tells me he remembers talking in his youth with the man who ploughed what is now the market square of our town.

I think the subject which has fascinated me most is the record of the way men and women walked a century ago. It is becoming in a sense a lost art, yet what can be more healthful? I raise my hat to the sturdy walkers of old. I think the finest example set to us is by a woman from Cooley. It will be remembered that certain families were transported thither from Armagh. One day more than eighty years ago, my old friend, now in Cooley, told me that his mother walked to Armagh, carrying him, then two years old, on her back I think the distance is seventy-four miles, and she accomplished it in two days, stopping the night in Newtownstewart. In due time she walked back again.

Another old friend tells me that when he was young he regularly walked to Derry on market day, starting in the small hours and driving cattle. Arrived in Derry, he transacted his business, perhaps bought more cattle, and walked back with them to Moville, arriving at midnight, and so tired that he seemed to walk in his sleep the last mile or two. It meant forty miles and much business.

But so little was a mere forty miles considered that in the 'forties of last century the Commandant at Greencastle Fort, when he wanted his pay, in place of using the post, sent his maid servant to Derry to fetch it. She walked the forty miles and went on with her work after she had returned.

It is worth recording also that a century ago the people of Greencastle and Shrove made Coleraine their market town. It was the regular custom to use the ferries to MacGilligan for every purpose. Both men and women have told me how they used to walk from Shrove, cross over, walk to Coleraine, thirteen miles, carry their goods, transact business, and return in the evening to their home the same day. The crossing back again was, of course, uncertain and there were sheds near the point where people could, if necessary, spend the night. It was a busy ferry there; today a mere shadow of what it used to be.

The postman was, of course, a fine walker. At first, he walked from Moville to Derry carrying the mail; he stayed the night in Derry and walked back the following day. But it was not only the twenty miles' daily walk; he had, I suppose, to deliver the letters at certain points both coming and going. He carried the postbags on his back attached to a rope, and in front he had a weight on the rope to balance the bags behind. Later in time, the postman rode to Derry and back in the same day, carrying the mails. Of course, he must have had a relay of horses.

I have wondered whether, say, in the year 1800, when there were probably no hard roads, these great walkers tramped barefoot. Perhaps someone can enlighten us.

Walking has been my passion until old age forbade. But my own effort, when I was seventy, was child's play compared with the old stalwarts. I rose one morning and started at 6.30 a.m. (my wife was away!), breakfasted at Redcastle at 8 a.m., left at 9 a.m., and reached the Derry Post Office at 1.15 p.m. It rained all the way, but I had an umbrella and a suit of clothes in a fishing basket.

Old age makes one garrulous, and I may be allowed to tell of tramps on the West Coast of Tasmania among dense forests and tremendous hills, visiting miners and carrying a swag. My bush parson and I started one morning at 4 a.m. in winter and walked thirty-two miles by 6.30 p.m. There was only a track which crossed un-bridged streams, and thought nothing of huge fallen logs and ascents and descents of 500 feet. There was no human habitation until we reached our destination. What a glorious life it was! On that particular walk, one could not accomplish more than two and a-quarter miles an hour.

But I pass on to various kinds of business among our people. Meat was little eaten. My father, born in 1809, said they used to have meat at the rectory on Sundays only. At times a man would call to say he had "a view of a sheep:" would the rector take a piece if he killed? Or a man would come carrying round a sheep on his back. This was the sheep would he take a joint? How some joints, too, are no longer taken! I asked my old friend in Moville last year (Mr. C.), "When did you last sell a saddle of mutton to anyone?" He looked at me and said - "To Sir Robert." My father died in 1887.

Then the tailors of old. They went from house to house, staying with the family and made the garments, getting their "meat" and a wage besides. Of course, they found the cloth provided for them, for every farmer grew his own wool, the girls spun it, and were called spinners (spinsters) in consequence. Then they took yarn to the local weaver, who returned it to them woven. What fine cloth it was! It looked to be impervious to wet. Moreover, even in my own early days it seemed always to be of the same colour, " hodden grey." Yet I know that some dye their garments a fine red colour by means of a dye they obtained from a plant in the bogs.

The shoemaker, too, he came and stayed and got his "meat." But, indeed, boots were a luxury. One old friend tells me he got his first boots when he was 14 years of age. And girls perhaps had a pair between them, to be put on outside the town and taken off when returning home. I have often asked the old friends whether they were not just as happy and healthy in those old days as today. "Yes" they say. The girls had shawls and no hats, and seldom wore shoes or stockings.

Food was very cheap and very simple. Even a century ago, I am told that potatoes were not common. They lived on oatmeal porridge and oat bread, and drank buttermilk. Indian meal was little used, nor was tea drunk, except as a luxury. Wages were, indeed, small, but food was equally cheap. There was less means of transport. Consequently cod, each weighing fourteen pounds or more, were 2s 6d a dozen.

Turf was abundant, and much closer to their homes than today. I don't know what the size of the carts might have been, but one old friend remembers turf being sold for 1s (one shilling) a load, another mentions 2s. Turf first came down the hill on horseback, then on "slipes," then on carts with small solid wheels, and these last are with us still. "Slipes," most of my readers will know, were boards jointed together, one end resting upon the ground.

Money was not plentiful. One old friend tells me that eighty years ago he saw a fine young fellow refused work at 6d a day, that being too expensive. One man he remembers working on our Stone Pier for 4d a day. Another friend tells me his father, when a farm lad about fourteen years of age, received 12s for half a year. It was hard work, and he had to churn every evening. Another got his "meat", 10s a year, and a suit of clothes. One of the veterans, who passed away not long ago, told me that as a child he herded cattle for 7s a year.

Even seventy years ago, or even less, how common it was to see the children all day watching cows grazing. Fences were few and the cattle had to be kept out of the corn. But perhaps the most astonishing fact I have learnt from an old friend is to the effect that when he was young the horses did not know what I may call "ploughing language." No one ploughed single-handed. It needed one man to guide and another to hold the plough, and when they came to the end of the furrow the two lifted up the plough and put it straight.

Donkeys were greatly used: and here I must set down a piece of Professor MacAlister's humour. He had been talking of the old extinct animals, the elks and wolves, then of horses. When he came to speak of donkeys, he wrote - "No ass appeared in Ireland until the English Occupation!"

Perhaps a few words about game birds and beasts will interest. I have received the following facts from my aged friends. A century or so ago partridges were not uncommon. Mr. Dysart, when Mayor of Derry in 1822, used to shoot them in the fields above Carnagarve. Foxes were common. One friend remembers seeing a man bringing in two about seventy-five years ago. They are extinct in Inishowen, happily for us today, but are still to be found in West Donegal.

Passing on to quite rare creatures, I can tell those interested in natural history that there is a beautiful white Jer-Falcon (Iceland), at Malin Hall, killed forty years ago. At Culdaff House, they have a fine pine marten, caught recently. It is like a big brown ferret. Our only contribution to rarities is a white grouse shot at Glenagivney. My son, however, was so anxious to secure it that he shattered the body. All that remained for the stuffer was the head and wings and tail.

In Moville itself, we have been accustomed to a succession of tame otters; too tame, indeed. They entered houses and became a nuisance. Strange to say, the dogs did not molest them.

Our best sportsman has a three pound brown trout stuffed in his shop, caught near Gleneely. Finally, the late Mr. Robert Nolan shot a hoopoe at Ballybrack a few years ago, and it is now in the Derry collection of birds of Donegal.

Such memories lead me to ask whether there are not also extinct species of human beings worthy of commemoration. My friends in Moville and Glenagivney will laugh when I tell of a very dear friend of mine, First known to me seventy years ago. There is no one like him left, the species is extinct; I mean the man, the man who lived for sport alone. Halfway down a brae in Glenagivney lived "Jimmie the divvle."

For years in the summer months, he and I wandered over the hill almost daily. With him I explored the cliffs and knew all about "the tobacco hide." He knew all about grouse and snipe and hares that was worth knowing. When we could find no grouse he used to comfort me by saying, "That's a fine place for cocks in the winter time!" Jimmie had his limitations. His friends humorously said that he fought, he drank, he "stilled", he never paid a debt, and they were not sure that he ever did a whole days work. I found that the best way of getting his few shillings of rent was to let him off altogether!

But to me over a space of perhaps thirty years he was an Irish gentleman. No bad word ever passed his lips when in my company. Once when I was walking into the town I hailed a friend, "Have you seen Jimmie?" "I have not, but yon's the divvle's wife!"

When I went abroad to the Antipodes I left orders that when Jimmie was laid to rest a wreath should be placed on his grave, "From his old friend, Henry Montgomery." He was supposed to watch our mountain, and it may be asked if in our absence his watch was strict. In Parliament when an embarrassing question is put to one of the Ministry the answer is sometimes given, "I should like to have notice of that question." Dear Jimmie: peace be to his memory. His house on the brae is nought but a ruin today.