A Cock’s Stride

The Year Book reprints an account from the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1759 of the countryman’s own instruments. He judged the night’s rain by the height of the pond in his yard, used the smoke of his chimney as a compass, read the weather from his sheep and the martins and swallows, and told the time by the shadow of his door-post. He also had a saying, heard all over England, that by New Year’s tide the days had lengthened a cock’s stride, meaning the few inches by which the noon shadow of the lintel had crept back towards the door since midwinter.