Personifications of malevolence: Seven stories from The Clock Strikes Twelve and Other Stories by H. R. Wakefield. (Ash-Tree Press, 1998)

135 years since the birth of H. Russell Wakefield (1888-1964)

Readers who are unfamiliar with the collection may prefer to read these notes only after reading the stories.

Two years ago I read most of the short stories in The Clock Strikes Twelve, and posted about them here. Last week, I returned to the collection.

Not Quite Cricket

  ‘ “There they are, both of ’em!” he yelled. “Sam’s come to see the play, bloody face and all!”

"Not Quite Cricket" is a well-told rural horror story centered on the cricket rivalry of two men and their villages. But this is not a Hornung or Wodehouse cricket yard. Wakefield does a fine turn depicting sudden death in sport, pulling in peg legs, gypsies, and a village idiot with second sight. There is nothing light-hearted outside the framing prologue; this is life depicted as lived for mortal stakes.

A Fishing Story

An Irish fishing story, beautifully evoking a troubled landscape.

  A fish rose, head and tail, a little ahead of Tranion’s fly. He reeled out, took in the slack, and dropped the fly in the widening swirl.

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