Beyond the City: a novel by the Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892)

Beyond the City By Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond the City (1892) is a novel by the Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.If you please mum said the voice of a domestic from somewhere round the angle of the door number three is moving in. Two little old ladies who were sitting at either side of a table sprang to their feet with ejaculations of interest and rushed to the window of the sittingroom. Take care Monica dear said one shrouding herself in the lace curtain dont let them see us. No no Bertha. We must not give them reason to say that their neighbors are inquisitive. But I think that we are safe if we stand like this. The open window looked out upon a sloping lawn well trimmed and pleasant with fuzzy rosebushes and a star-shaped bed of sweet-william. It was bounded by a low wooden fence which screened it off from a broad modern new metaled road. At the other side of this road were three large detached deep- bodied villas with peaky eaves and small wooden balconies each standing in its own little square of grass and of flowers. All three were equally new but numbers one and two were curtained and sedate with a human sociable look to them while number three with yawning door and unkempt garden had apparently only just received its furniture and made itself ready for its occupants. A four-wheeler had driven up to the gate and it was at this that the old ladies peeping out bird-like from behind their curtains directed an eager and questioning gaze. The cabman had descended and the passengers within were handing out the articles which they desired him to carry up to the house. He stood red-faced and blinking with his crooked arms outstretched while a male hand protruding from the window kept piling up upon him a series of articles the sight of which filled the curious old ladies with bewilderment. My goodness me! cried Monica the smaller the drier and the more wizened of the pair. What do you call that Bertha? It looks to me like four batter puddings.Those are what young men box each other with said Bertha with a conscious air of superior worldly knowledge. And those? Two great bottle-shaped pieces of yellow shining wood had been heaped upon the cabman. Oh I dont know what those are confessed Bertha. Indian clubs had never before obtruded themselves upon her peaceful and very feminine existence. These mysterious articles were followed however by others which were more within their range of comprehension-by a pair of dumb-bells a purple cricket-bag a set of golf clubs and a tennis racket. Finally when the cabman all top-heavy and bristling had staggered off up the garden path there emerged in a very leisurely way from the cab a big powerfully built young man with a bull pup under one arm and a pink sporting paper in his hand. The paper he crammed into the pocket of his light yellow dust-coat and extended his hand as if to assist some one else from the vehicle. To the surprise of the two old ladies however the only thing which his open palm received was a violent slap and a tall lady bounded unassisted out of the cab. With a regal wave she motioned the young man towards the door and then with one hand upon her hip she stood in a careless lounging attitude by the gate kicking her toe against the wall and listlessly awaiting the return of the driver.