Dubious Deeds Read online

  ‘Errrr,’ said Angus McFeeeeeeee, with some embarrassment.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘Well … er … whilst the MacMuckles were still alive and living at Tall Hall, it was called the MacMuckle Falls but, once they’d gone, the locals renamed it.’

  ‘So what’s the waterfall called now?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Gudger’s Dump.’

  ‘Why Gudger’s Dump?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘Gudger McCloud was a poacher who made the MacMuckles’ lives a misery,’ confessed the lawyer, somewhat sheepishly. ‘I suspect it’s simply that the clans wanted to wipe out all memory of the MacMuckle name and called their so-called waterfall after Gudger to add insult in injury.’

  ‘I get the feeling that Even Madder Aunt Maud’s family weren’t too popular around here,’ Eddie commented.

  ‘About as popular as a conger eel slipped down the end of a bagpipe,’ agreed McFeeeeeeee.

  Eddie imagined that that must be very unpopular indeed.

  They reached a five-bar gate, recently painted white.

  ‘Jump down and open that, would you, laddie?’ asked the lawyer, ‘whoaing’ the horse.

  Eddie stepped out of the trap straight on to a pile of horse manure. It was still warm.

  ‘That’s supposed to be good luck, in these parts,’ Mr McFeeeeeeee reassured him, but Eddie was pretty sure that he was trying not to laugh.

  Episode 2

  A Mixed Clan

  In which Eddie meets more McFeeeeeeees and other local wildlife

  Angus McFeeeeeeee’s house seemed very small compared to Awful End and even to the house Eddie had been born in and lived in with his parents before that. (Unlike Awful End, the house Eddie was born in doesn’t exist any more. This probably has something to do with the fact that it was burnt to the ground and never rebuilt. Where it once stood is now part of a business park which is probably best known for being the UK headquarters of the company owned by the man who invented those spiky pyjamas which stop the wearer from snoring.) By local standards, however, McFeeeeeeee’s house seemed large. The only other dwellings Eddie had laid eyes on during their short pony-and-trap journey were what the lawyer described as ‘crofters’ cottages’: they were small, often round, and usually roughly thatched; the cottages, that is, not the crofters.

  ‘What do crofters do?’ Eddie had asked his travelling companion.

  ‘Eat, sleep, drink –’ began McFeeeeeeee.

  ‘Crofting?’ Eddie’d interrupted. ‘What’s crofting?’

  ‘Farming,’ the lawyer told him.

  Mrs McFeeeeeeee was there on the doorstep to greet Master Edmund Dickens all the way from England. She was a McMuffin by birth – no relation to Dr Muffin, who’d caused that fire at the Dickens house I just mentioned, nor of the delicious breakfast products from the McDonald’s chain of fast-food restaurants (for whom ‘McMuffin’, I have no doubt whatsoever, is a registered trademark). Unlike her husband, Mrs McFeeeeeeee was very welcoming indeed.

  ‘How nice to have you here in the Highlands, Master Edmund,’ she beamed. ‘And how are your dear mad great-uncle and even madder great-aunt?’

  ‘They’re very well, thank you, Mrs McFeeeeeeeeee –’

  ‘Just the eight “e”s, remember,’ Mr McFeeeeeeee interrupted him.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Eddie (having lost count). ‘They send their regards, Mrs McFeeeeeeee.’

  ‘How kind,’ said the jolly woman, ushering Eddie into the house. ‘Are they as nutty as ever?’

  ‘As nutty as a fruitcake,’ Eddie reassured her and, mark my words, fruitcakes were even nuttier in those days. You could hardly move for nuts. In fact, for a short period during Queen Victoria’s reign, they might just as accurately have been called ‘nutcakes’ as ‘fruitcakes’.

  Speaking of which, the lawyer’s wife now offered Eddie some refreshment. ‘You must be hungry after your long journey,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you. I am a little,’ Eddie confessed, ‘though I did eat on the train.’ His mother had made him a packed lunch comprised mainly of broad-bean sandwiches, which are, gentle readers, I promise you, as unpleasant as they sound; overcooked broad beans, in their leathery wrinkled skins, between slices of Mrs Dickens’s home-made bread.

  For the Victorian poor, bread was usually the main part of their diet – in other words, mostly what they ate – and there was lots of skulduggery going on in the making of bread back then to ‘bulk it out’ so that the bakers could make the maximum amount of money out of the minimum amount of flour. A common trick was to add sawdust and other floor-sweepings. The well-off, however, had their own cooks and servants to make their bread for them, so could usually avoid such nasties. Eddie’s mother actually liked to bake her own bread. The problem was that she also liked to add her own special ingredients, which included:

  ground acorns

  squirrel droppings (but only from red squirrels, not grey)

  powdered deer’s antler (stolen from one of the many mounted deer’s heads on the walls of Awful End)

  wallpaper paste (a real favourite)

  watch springs.

  Back in the days before watches were battery-powered and quartz-controlled, they had a mechanical clockwork mechanism of many moving parts, and springs were an all-important component of these works. One day, Mrs Dickens had come upon a whole drawer full of such springs and immediately put them to good use, adding a pinch of them to her bread mix every time she baked thereafter. The result? A Mrs Dickens loaf of bread was probably more of a threat to your health than one sold by an unscrupulous baker; the difference being that Eddie’s mother liked it that way. Eddie, of course, had no choice. The bread of his home-made broad-bean sandwiches was crunchy, to say the least.

  Before we get back to Mrs McFeeeeeeee (formerly Miss McMuffin), I thought you might be interested to know that the sandwich was named after the person who’s said to have invented the idea of putting a tasty filling between two handy-to-hold slices of bread. You would, therefore, expect that person to have been called Sandwich. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If a sandwich is named after the person who invented it, then logic dictates that his name must have been Sandwich? Funnily enough, though, his name was Montagu (without an ‘e’ on the end). So the sandwich is named after a man called Montagu. Clear? I thought not. Perhaps I should add that he was the Earl of Sandwich, which is the name of a place. In fact, there’s a place called Sandwich not a million miles from where I live, and there’s a place called Ham near by, too. The arm of the signpost pointing in their direction used to read:

  but it was stolen so many times – by people who thought it was funny, I imagine – that it was finally replaced with one that read:

  which isn’t nearly as amusing but which still makes you think.

  Mrs McFeeeeeeee gave Eddie a large slice of cold game pie and some cold potatoes. ‘A wee something to keep you going until supper time,’ she said, handing him a large fork, before Mr McFeeeeeeee’s man, McDuff, had even had time to bring in Eddie’s carpetbag.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Eddie. He sat on a high-backed chair in the parlour and ate. The meal was delicious.

  When Eddie had finished, Mrs McFeeeeeeee asked if he’d like to have a nap, but he said that he’d like to explore. He could really do with stretching his legs after being cooped up in that train for all that time. The countryside was breathtaking, which is another way of saying that it took his breath away, which is another way of saying it made him gasp. It was so dramatic.

  Although there are many different parts of Scotland with many different towns, cities and villages, it can be roughly divided into two sections: the Highlands and the Lowlands. One is much hillier and more full of mountains than the other. No prizes for guessing which is which. The Dickens house (formerly the MacMuckle house) in Scotland was, as I’ve already mentioned, very much in the Highlands, and so was their lawyer’s home. From every window, Eddie could see moorlands covered in heather, and blue mountains cutting into the skyline on
the horizon (except for from the loo window, which was made of some kind of frosted glass, which meant that Eddie couldn’t see anything out of it but the failing daylight).

  ‘Stick to the paths and you cannae go wrong,’ Mrs McFeeeeeeee reassured him. ‘Apart from the road, the only way from here is up, so, wherever you wander, you won’t lose sight of the house down below, and you’ll be able to head back towards it. It also means that you’ll have a nice downhill walk on your way back.’

  Having once been lost on the misty moors back home, Eddie was glad that he’d be able to keep the house in sight. He set off with interest and, after about an hour, sat down on a rocky outcrop by a clump of trees and looked back down into the valley. Smoke was coming from the house’s chimney.

  ‘McFeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’ cried a high-pitched voice and someone fell out of the branches of a tree almost directly above Eddie. There was a nasty ‘THUD’ and a mini-version of Angus McFeeeeeeee leapt to his feet, awkwardly brushing bits of heather and dirt off his clothes.

  ‘Were you planning to try to strangle me with your bare hands?’ asked Eddie. He didn’t look particularly worried for three reasons:

  he was used to being around strange people (aka ‘his family’)

  this boy’s hands didn’t look big enough to put around Eddie’s neck to strangle him, bare or otherwise

  his uncle lived in a treehouse and had fallen out of it in front of Eddie on more than one occasion, so narrowly avoiding being hit by people falling from trees could be described as a familiar occurrence in Eddie’s life.

  ‘’Course not,’ said the mini-McFeeeeeeee, looking a little shame-faced. He’d probably been hoping to land on Eddie, or frighten him at the very least. ‘So you’re the English boy, aye?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eddie. ‘Is Angus McFeeeeeeee your father? You certainly look like him.’

  ‘Angus McFeeeeeeee is no father of mine,’ snapped the boy. ‘He works for English clients.’

  ‘He works for my great-uncle, if that’s what you mean, but I imagine that he must have plenty of Scottish clients too,’ Eddie pointed out.

  ‘If I were a lawyer, I wouldnae work for no Englishman,’ said the boy. He even spoke just like a high-pitched version of Angus McFeeeeeeee. ‘Were you not a wee bit surprised by my sudden appearance from above?’

  ‘Oh, a little,’ Eddie lied, politely, just to cheer up the boy. He put out his hand. ‘I’m Eddie Dickens,’ he said. ‘Though I suspect that you already know that.’

  ‘Magnus,’ said the boy, though not shaking the offered hand.

  ‘McFeeeeeeee?’ asked Eddie. The boy nodded. ‘You’re not a great fan of us English then?’

  ‘Why should we be ruled by an English queen?’ squeaked Magnus defiantly.

  ‘I think she rules most of the world,’ Eddie reminded him, which wasn’t far from the truth. In those days, the British Empire was spread across much of the world (except Europe) and was shown on maps and globes in pink, as though all these foreign countries were blushing with pride at being ruled over by Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

  ‘It isnae right, I tell you,’ Magnus muttered.

  ‘Because she’s a woman?’ asked Eddie. ‘Or because she’s English?’

  ‘English, of course!’ said little Magnus McFeeeeeeee. ‘Bertie is just as bad.’ Bertie was Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, which has little to do with being a prince in Wales. It was simply the title given to the Queen’s eldest son, who was, by birthright, first in line to throne. ‘I know a riddle about him,’ sniggered Magnus. ‘What’s the difference between the Prince of Wales, an orphan, a bald-headed man, and a gorilla?’

  Eddie was shocked. He suspected that it was rather disrespectful even to try to guess the answers to riddles which included a gorilla and a member of the royal family in the same sentence. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘I think I’d better be heading back down now.’ He began his descent of the sloping moorside.

  Magnus McFeeeeeeee ran alongside him. ‘Do you give up, English?’ he demanded.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Eddie, secretly intrigued by what the answer might be.

  ‘The Prince of Wales is the heir apparent, an orphan has ne’er a parent, a bald-headed man has no hair apparent, and the gorilla has a hairy parent.’ Magnus grinned, then gave a high-pitched snort, like an excited (Scottish) piglet.

  Try as hard as he might, Eddie couldn’t hide his smile. Any joke with the phrase ‘a hairy parent’ in it was quite funny as far as he was concerned. The truth be told, it was quite a good joke for those days, and isn’t too bad today, as long as you know that ‘heir apparent’ means ‘next-in-line-to-the-throne’ and that ‘ne’er’ means ‘never’.

  ‘Did you make that up yourself, Magnus?’ Eddie asked with a sneaking admiration, trudging through the purple heather.

  ‘I didnae,’ said the mini-McFeeeeeeee, with a shake of his head. ‘But here’s one I did: Why will the Queen of England come in handy if you need to measure up for a pair of curtains?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Eddie a little guiltily. ‘Why will Queen Victoria come in handy if I need to measure up for a pair of curtains?’

  ‘Because she’s a ruler, stupid!’ With that, Magnus McFeeeeeeee ran charging ahead of Eddie down the hill. ‘McFeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’ he yelled. If Magnus had been in charge of the original McFeeeeeeee battlecry, Eddie wondered how many ‘e’s that branch of the clan would have ended up with in their name.

  By the way, I should explain that the Victorians loved a good pun. Any joke involving a play on words was seen as very clever and a bundle of laughs. By today’s standards, some of them are so laboured and complicated that laughing at them is the last thing you want to do. Running away screaming, ‘Enough! No more!’ is the more likely reaction. Don’t believe me? Then here are just three that were popular in the late 1880s (from my copy of Old Roxbee’s Appalling Puns of the 1880s). I can only apologise in advance to anyone trying to translate these into another language – or trying to come up with equally appalling puns from the 1880s in their particular mother/father tongue – and would like to remind all concerned that I didn’t make these up myself.

  Q: What is the difference between a cat and a comma?

  A: A cat has its claws at the end of its paws but a comma its pauses at the end of its clauses.

  Groan!

  Q: What fashionable game do frogs play?

  A: Croaky (croquet)

  Aaaargh!

  Q: Is it true that a leopard can’t change his spots?

  A: No, because when he becomes tired of one spot he can simply move to another.

  Please stop, Mr Ardagh! Please! We’ll be good, we promise! Just make the nasty jokes go away.

  Okay, we’ll end this episode here and begin the next one with Eddie Dickens about to head off for Tall Hall by the MacMuckle Falls/Gudger’s Dump. (I did promise you we would, didn’t I?)

  Episode 3

  A Surprise for All Concerned

  In which the reason for Eddie’s trip to Scotland is revealed

  After a sleepless night in what he suspected was the lumpiest bed in the Highlands, if not Scotland or the entire British Empire, Eddie was up bright and early. It was the sky that was bright, I hasten to add. Not Eddie. After a night of not sleeping, his brain was particularly sluggish and, if asked what – for example – was seven plus eleven, he’d probably have replied, ‘Oslo,’ which is, in fact, the answer to an entirely different question altogether.

  Fortunately, the only question he was asked first thing was by Mrs McFeeeeeeee (formerly Miss McMuffin) and that was: ‘What would you be liking for your breakfast, m’dear?’ to which he replied ‘Boots and shoes’ (which was actually the answer to the question: ‘What is one of the main manufacturing industries in the town of Northampton?’).

  If Eddie’s mother had been the one asking the question, then there’s every possibility that Eddie would have ended up being served with boots and shoes, if she’d had the ingredients readily to hand. Fo
rtunately for Eddie, though, Mrs McFeeeeeeee realised that he’d just spent his first night in a foreign land (if you didn’t count his time at sea, which was more foreign water, or on a small sandy hummock mainly inhabited by turtles), so made allowances for him.

  She served up some biscuits which she called bannocks and some potato cakes, all to be washed down with a big steaming mug of tea. Angus McFeeeeeeee sat at the head of the table, drinking tea from an even bigger mug, which had the effect of making him look even smaller. Mrs McFeeeeeeee sat at the other, and their son Magnus (who’d said that Angus was no father of his because he had English clients) sat opposite Eddie, giving him a glassy stare.

  Living in a household where a stuffed stoat was considered by some as an honorary member of the family, Eddie was as used to glassy stares as he was to people falling out of trees, so was equally unimpressed by Magnus’s latest tactic.

  ‘Is it true ya have a tail, English?’ asked Magnus, before stuffing a forkful of potato cake into his mouth and chewing furiously.

  ‘Magnus!’ said his mother sternly.

  Mr McFeeeeeeee, who was busy reading that morning’s edition of the Highlands Gazette, either didn’t hear what his son had said or pretended not to notice.

  ‘What do you mean –?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘Ignore the boy,’ Mrs McFeeeeeeee pleaded. ‘He has no manners.’

  Instead, Magnus ignored her. ‘I read in a book once that all you poor English have tails,’ he went on. ‘Like monkeys,’ he smirked.

  Mrs McFeeeeeeee leapt to her feet and hit Magnus with a ladle (a big spoon) which she had readily to hand. (Perhaps she often used it for this purpose.) ‘Master Edmund is a guest in this house and his family are respected clients of your father,’ she said. ‘You’re not to talk to him in this manner.’