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.