22 AMID THE HIGH HILLS 
he replied by quoting from a writer, whose name 
he did not know, the following lines, which I had 
never heard before and the authorship of which 
was at that time unknown to my friend also : 
Upon the river's bank serene 
A fisher sat where all was green 
And looked it. 
' He saw when light was growing dim 
The fish or else the fish saw him 
And hooked it. 
He took with high erected comb 
The fish or else the story home 
And cooked it. 
Recording angels by his bed 
Weighed all that he had done or said 
And booked it.^ 
* After the publication of these verses in the above article, as it 
originally appeared in the issue of Country Life for August 6, 1921, 
their authorship was discovered through the kindness of some of the 
readers of that journal and the enterprise of its editor. In a letter in 
Country Life for August 27, 1921, Bishop G. F. Browne, late Lord 
Bishop of Bristol, thus describes their origin. " The first three stanzas 
were composed at Lowick Rectory, Northants, by the rector, J. S. Watson, 
his daughter Betty, and Dean Ingram of Peterborough. The authors 
felt that there ought to be a concluding stanza, ambiguously stating a 
final result. I told the story to Father Waggett on our way from Bourne- 
mouth to Clouds, and he suggested ' booked it ' as the point of a last 
stanza. On that hint I wrote the stanza. In my book I remark that 
its tendency would be unjust to any real fisherman's imaginative powers." 
