re being cast out of the hives, and
in an angle formed by the buttress of the church, Hugh found a small
lead cistern of water, which was a curious sight; it was all full of
struggling bees fallen from the roof above, either solitary bees who
had darted into the surface, and could not extricate themselves, or
drones with a working bee grappled, intent on pinching the life out of
the poor bewildered creature, the day of whose reckoning had come.
Hugh spent a long time in pulling the creatures out and setting them in
the sun, till at last he was warned by slanting shadows that the
evening was approaching, and he set off upon his homeward way.

In a village near Cambridge he encountered a friend, a bluff man of
science, who was engaged in a singular investigation. He kept a large
variety of fowls, and tried experiments in cross-breeding, noting
carefully in a register the plumage and physical characteristics of the
chickens. He had hired for the purpose a pleasant house, with a few
paddocks attached, where he kept his poultry. He invited Hugh to come
in, who in his leisurely mood gladly assented. The great man took him
round his netted runs, and discoursed easily upon the principles that
he was elucidating. He spoke with a mild enthusiasm; and it surprised
and pleased Hugh that a man of force and gravity should spend many
hours of every day in registering facts about the legs, the wattles,
and the feathers of chickens, and speak so gravely of the prospect of
infinite interest that opened before him. He said that he had worked
thus for some years, and as yet felt himself only on the fringe of the
subject. They walked about the big garden, where the evening sun lay
pleasantly on turf and borders of old-fashioned flowers; and with the
complacent delight with which a scientific man likes to show
experiments to persons who are engaged in childish pursuits such as
literature, the philosopher pointed out some other curiosities, as a
plant with a striped flower, whose stalk was covered with small red
protuberances, full of a volatile and aromatic oil, which, when a
lighted match was applied to them, sent off a little airy flame with a
dry and agreeable fragrance, as the tiny ignited cells threw out their
inflammable perfume.

Hugh was pleasantly entertained by these sights, and went home in a
very blithe frame of mind; a little later he sat down to write in his
own cool study. He was working at a task of writing which he