THE NIGHTINGALE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 266, 6 August 1929, Page 6

THE NIGHTINGALE

SINGS WITH A ’CELLO IN AN ENGLISH GARDEN (By Nellie M. Scanlan.) Dominion Special Service. Froghole Lane, Kent, June 15. Seven out of the sixteen dogs met me at the gate. They were mostly of Scottlsh extraction. I was taking tea in the garden with Beatrice Harrison, where she lures the nightingales with her 'cello. It was here that records of their sweet songs were made. Beatrice Harrison has won fame as a 'cellist, but it is as the friend of the nightingale that her name will live. Born in India, where her father commanded a regiment, she spent years of study in Germany, knew Russia before the Revolution, has toured Europe. Canada and America with her ’cello, is the friend of kings and princes, and has been courted by millionaires. In fact, her music room is stuffed with rare treasures and gifts from the great and near-great. A few years ago, with her parents and pets and her three sisters, she came to live at “Foyle Riding - ’ in Surrey, in a lovely old house with a wonderful garden. She wanted nightingales in her garden, but there were none. So she played her 'cello under the trees, and one by one the nightin-, gales came, until a little colony of them decided to make it their home. Beatrice Harrison, a slim young woman, with a pale face and plaintive manner, played to the nightingales, and they accompanied her ’cello with song. Later she conceived the Idea of having gramophone records made of the nightingale’s song, and now in the remotest corners of the world, you may hear these English birds singing to the ’cello accompaniment, or singing alone, with the accidental harmony of distant church bells. These songs have also been broadcast over the wireless, from microphones set in the garden. • “We made the records just there,”and she pointed to a cluster of trees nearby. “They - had a recording van with all the mechanism and three microphones, and we started at ten at night. But it was a long time before the shy birds would sing near the microphone. I practically spent the whole night in the ditch with my 'cello. It took hours and hours of patience, and it was just four o’clock in the morning before we got a perfect record made. You can hear a cock crow in one, she added. Beatrice Harrison’s two. sisters are violinistes, but the nightingales do not respond to the violin; it is for the 'cello Only they will sing. The gardens at Foyle ■ Riding look down towards the setting sun, and they have been designed to enhance the day’s last glory by a fell and terrace and vistas framed in vines and-flowers. The music room is an old barn, converted and adapted for her needs, and in which : are - placed so many royal gifts and treasures. There is a marvellous old cabinet from Hampton Court, used as a bookcase. Above, the communion rail of an old sixteenth century church forms the musicians’ gallery. Below hangs a blood-red lamp, the Parsifal goblet from the. Wagnerian festival at Beyrut. An alcove has been built in to receive the splendid old carved Rqyalfbed from. Kenilworth Castle in Scotland, and a carved ivory crucifix and two huge brass candlesticks stand on the mantelpiece above the immense fireplace. A star-pointed witch’s lamp hangs from the ceiling —a lamp that is-siiid. to keep witches away—and a great- silver ball is suspended from the oak beams, reflecting the whole room.

The light of the setting sun struck through, a stained glass window on to a large figure of St, Joan,in bronze, and the slender cobweb that tied the martial saint to .the wall was undisturbed because of some felicitous superstition. A huge throne-like chair in blue brocade had a leophrd skin thrown across it, and tiger and leopard skins covered the floor and couches.

Music and nightingales do not entirely absorb Beatrice Harrison to the exclusion ,of other things, and all the gifts that come her way. are not inanimate. Seven, of the sixteen dogs met me at the gate, and their welcome was almost menacing. Rosie, the new-born Scot, waddled fatly into the scene later, and the ancient of the tribe sat gloomily in the shade, waiting to don his red flannel jacket when the sun had set. He suffers from bronchitis. Two donkeys grazed in the adjoining meadow. When, as it baby, one had been presented to her in London, she tried to take it home in a taxi. Blit it put its head out of the window and brayed so loudly that it nearly caused a riot in Sloane Square. Some frogs and toads of strange species dwell in a rock garden ih a glass case “They live on worms—bread worms —and they are so expensive,” she explained. “They cost Bs. a lb.” Two little alligators, gifts from South America, were sunning themselves in a tank In tbe garden, and required a diet of fish and bread, with lamps beneath their tank each night to keep 'them warm. Parrots, lovebirds, pigeons—the place seemed alive with beasts and birds. I was ilot. surprised when Mrs. Harrison, told me they had difficulty in keeping servants. “We have three who roll in each day —one gets the bteakfast, and goes, then the next gets the lunch, and the third the dinner. But sometimes they don’t roll in at all, and we have to get meals ourselves.” Guests —and they are many—are accommodated in a special Guest Cottage, a lovely little Tudor place built among the trees.

“I built the Guest House,” said Mrs. Harrison, “in case visitors should find all this (with.a sweeping gesture embracing the frogs, donkeys, dogs, alligators, parrots, etc.) a little.too noisy.” "This is the blue garden. Queen Alexander gave me .all the seeds for these blue flowers.” - and Beatrice, fondling Rosie, the Scottish pup. led me into n. mass of blue lupins, and hosts of other lovely flowers. “And that box-tree arch —it is nearly 100 years old —was transplanted from Sandringham.” I saw where the nightingales nest on the ground, and perch just a few feet away to sing to their mate while she sits on the eggs. They do not soar to sing. During this brief /period they, sing-nearly al) day and all night, but their sdng is drowned during the day by the confusion of other noises, so that is why you hear them best in the quiet of the nigljh. “Do tell me if the nightingales they have sent out to Now Zealand are thriving.” she said. “I am most anxious to .” But her voice was drowned by the parting salvo of the whole sixteen dogs and Rosie the pup.