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The petitioners, however, ignored the fact that democracy could scarcely be expected to work successfully in a land where not one man in a hundred had the least notion what it meant, and, further, that the Western Powers would not give up their coign of vantage at the bidding of Notables who really represented little more than the dominant military party.
We passed out of the city by a gate where in a little coign of vantage a cobbler was thoughtfully hammering away in the tumult at a shoe-sole, and then suddenly on our right we had the Julian wall: not a mere fragment, but a good long stretch of it. The Moors had built upon it and characterized it, but had not so masked it as to hide the perdurable physiognomy of the Roman work.
Tak a seat at t' top o' bag o' provand, Kester; Betty and Will can hug chairs to t' fire, and lile Joe Moon mun sit on t' end o' t' bed." Such was Grannie's arrangement of the seats, while to me, the visitor, was assigned the "lang-settle" on the other side of the fireplace. It was a coign of vantage which I shared with the ancestral copper warming-pan, and from it I could see the whole group.
And one by one they were summoned by some endearing diminutive, until the nine cats had taken possession of every possible coign of vantage which was offered by the old lady's capacious person. There they sat, waving their tails to and fro, evidently very pleased by their mistress's little attentions. Mrs. Mee was not very popular in the neighborhood, except with the milkman and the butcher.
At the first crash of broken glass on the deck, the crew had begun to appear, unobtrusively from all directions. Now cabin-hatch, galley-hatch, deck-house, every coign of vantage along the battlefield held its silent cluster of wondering figures.
From his coign of vantage the watch now called out: "She's a long ship, five hundred tons, anyhow! Lord! the metal that she carries! She's rasedecked!" "Then she's Spanish, sure enough!" cried the Governor. From the crowd of servants, felons, and foreigners rose a great clamor, and presently we made out Sharpless perched on a cask in their midst and wildly gesticulating.
But succouring policemen were no more to be come by than goddesses. Where were ye, men, when that savage whip fell about the ears of the poor ex-legislator? In Scotland Yard, sitting dozing on your benches, or talking soft nothings to the housemaids round the corner; for ye were not walking on your beats, nor standing at coign of vantage, to watch the tumults of the day.
This alone shows how shy the gunners are; and when once I saw the trail of a fox-hunt from the same coign of vantage without seeing the fox, I felt that I had almost indecently come upon the horse and hounds, and that the pink coats and the flowery spread of the dappled dogs over the field were mine by a kind of sneak as base as killing a fox to save my hens.
"My!" said Molly, looking admiringly at Betsy's coolness over this transaction. Betsy went back to her dishes, stepping high. "Oh, Betsy, see! The pig! The big ox!" cried Molly now, looking from her coign of vantage down the wide, grass-grown lane between the booths. Betsy craned her head around over her shoulder, continuing conscientiously to wash and wipe the dishes.
Something about the chain gave way, the pole swerved round under the rearing horse, and great confusion and danger would have ensued, had not Shargar rushed from his coign of vantage, sprung at the bit of the rearing horse, and dragged him off the pole, over which he was just casting his near leg.