The Oaken Snuggery Part 3

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Rose Hill, Ontario, North of Bracebridge

HE OAKEN SNUGGERY - PART THREE

BY TED CURRIE

     “By wells and rills in the meadows green,

       We nightly dance our hey day guise,

      And to our fairy king and queen,

      We chant our moonlight minstrelsies.”

      (The poet, Ben Jonson)

     “Indeed it seems to me, that the older British poets, with that true feeling for nature which distinguishes them, have closely adhered to the simple and familiar imagery which they found in these popular superstitions, and have thus given to their fairy mythology those continued allusions to the farmhouse and the dairy, the green meadow and the fountain-head, that fill our minds with the delightful associations of rural life.” (Washington Irving; “Bracebridge Hall,” 1822)

     The picture hanging in the corner of the Great Room is of Queen Mab: of the "Dream of Lanthe". The scene portrayed is that where the fairy Queen "Mab summons the soul of the sleeping Lanthe, who lies on a couch. The personal image of the soul is seated in the shade behind her, looking at Queen Mab who has risen in her chariot, and in the act of waving her hand.

     The Oaken Snuggery is today, a modestly successful Bed and Breakfast operation, operating on a picturesque acreage north of the community of Bracebridge, in what was once the hamlet, if you could even call it that, of “Rose Hill.” It is a hill and valley topography, with its rock outcroppings, fringes of tall pines and the lowland braced by leaning old birches that poet Robert Frost would have found worthy of literary mention. There is a small hollow of pasture probably used in the past for some matter of livestock, but not much good for growing a significant crop. Much of Muskoka, in case you didn’t know this, has a thin soil and was never a highly successful agricultural region in the area of crop production. It was promoted as such in the 1860’s when the federal and provincial governments were looking overseas for hale and hardy emigrants, to take up this challenging landscape to establish homestead farms. Small gardens were successfully undertaken, but not as an economic interest in the general sense. For grazing livestock it was a much better landscape.

     It is day one of my stay at the Bosevelt’s Bed and Breakfast, where I have made an arrangement to lodge here for an entire month, in order to fully document, if it is even possible, the strange paranormal activities in and around the early 1900’s farmhouse. The house, which has been greatly improved upon and expanded, from the watercolor painting that hangs with some prominence in the main room, showing the house and shed sometime between the end of the Great Depression and the commencement of the Second World War. The Bosevelts have carried out the renovations and subsequent expansion since purchasing the estate from family some years earlier. Their idea had always been to establish a Bed and Breakfast home somewhere in Ontario, and by happenstance, they found the Rose Hill property during a general on-line search one evening; and by the next morning, they were making arrangements with the listing agent, to drive from Toronto to visit the site and its sprawling acreage.

     An hour or so ago the second group of four booked into the house, for the Easter holiday weekend, had arrived with great enthusiasm, and the Bosevelts, being kindly hosts, made sure to introduce me to both parties, without however, telling them the purpose of my lodging at “The Snuggery.” I had asked to be able to dine in my room that first night, to allow the paying guests to enjoy the ambience and good company, without creating any interest whatsoever, as to my personal biography, because we hadn’t come up with a covering story to explain the fact I could be seen about the property making copious notes. And then rattling away on the keyboard of the laptop late into the night. I think they did resolve to tell the guests that I was the current “writer in residence,” working on an untitled book project. That was okay with me and left a considerable latitude in which to answer honestly, as it was anticipated the research completed here might well end up in the public domain at some point. I just wouldn’t get chatty about ghosts and hobgoblins in case I was to frighten the paying customers off, which had happened at The Snuggery to other guests in the past months.

     I had made it clear to the Bosevelts that I would probably spend many nights in the coming month lounging about the house in various locations, except for those rooms rented out of course (that would have been awkward). I could only truly appreciate this house and its spirited entities if I had the quiet of night, and the ability to examine all the open rooms in the large farmhouse. I might even wander about the large verandah at the back of the house, affording a panoramic view of the pasture falling below the partially treed knoll where the buildings sat. And with the illumination of a moonlit night, I might also decide to do a walk-about along the cobbled pathways leading down to the pond and the maple grove to the north east. The family gave me all the freedom I needed, to see this house and property at all times of day and night, and to lounge where I though it most likely something unusual, a paranormal moment, or encounter, might prevail upon the voyeur.

     I had only been in the house for a few short hours, hardly enough time to judge if the house was haunted, or the nurturing ground of fantasy for its owners and lodgers. I didn’t feel in any way that this house had even a molecule of malevolence, and as far as a negative feeling within, there simply was nothing to jot down in my reporter’s notepad. It was all quite benign to start with, but I didn’t feel quite the same about the property that while scenic and as lovely an acreage as Muskoka has to offer, I was suspicious there was some adverse history connected here, but it was nothing more than a fleeting sensation on a short walk down to the pond. It was a cheerful house and the guests were happy to be there because there was a great din of conversation and laughter around the huge candle-laden harvest table after dinner. I should note here that while The Oaken Snuggery was indeed a Bed and Breakfast, the Bosevelts were quite prepared to treat guests to a full lodge package, which included three meals each day if so desired.

     Long after all, including the owners, had “retired to bedlam,” as Charles Dickens might have written about the end of social festivities for the night, I found a comfortable wing-back arm chair near the fire place, where I contented myself watching the diminishing flames, still crackling through bits of scattered cedar, and its brightly glowing embers, and had put my notepad and pen on the side table beneath the lamp, and instead, cradled a glass of warm wine amidst a most delicious atmosphere of rural life and times. If I wasn’t intending to write about ghosts and such, this would as well, be the perfect retreat to pen my first novel. It was the perfect solitude and a subtly romantic place to wax poetic. My wife would love it here and at this point, I truly felt guilty that she was not here to enjoy the ambience and, well, the romance of this most pleasant circumstance. I don’t know when I nodded off to sleep, but I know by the grandfather clock in the corner, it had only been about a half hour hiatus. I wasn’t at all sure what had stirred me awake, but it wasn’t the chimes of the clock, because it was neither the top or bottom of the hour. And it never crossed my mind that my awakening had anything to do with a presence in that room, although this was the reason I was on this midnight vigil, notepad at the ready. But there was nothing to report. Nothing visible. No sound other than the ticking of the clocks, of which there were four in two connected rooms of which I was in the room with the view out onto the pasture.

     I sat there for the better part of an hour, quite relaxed and raging with ideas about a future book I might like to write. But I was slowly succumbing to my weariness from a long day, and I was already initiating the first stretch of several, in order to rise up from this most comfortable chair, and at the same time, with my right hand, scoop up the writing gear of the table, when without the slightest preamble, I heard a faint whisper in my left ear, that could only have been the voice of a child; as I was only too familiar as a parent myself. I could not recite the words spoken because it seemed garbled, as if uttered by an agitated youngster, half out of breath from running. It was then, with both hands on the arm rests of the chair, as I was partly elevated from the chair seat, that I felt a small hand cover over my left hand, as if a child was close at my side, wishing to gain my attention beyond the whispered message. I let myself fall back into the chair, and awaited some other intervention, that I would be better able to appreciate and possibly interpret. There was nothing. I sat in that chair as silent as possible, except for my breathing, hoping for some other contact with whatever had initiated a relationship. When I found myself once again prepared to fall asleep, I decided it was time to wrap up the vigil for the night, having had at least something of the paranormal quality, reach out to me as a sort of kindred spirit. As for being frightened, it wasn’t contact, ghost or not, that was unsettling in the least. The voice and gentleness of the hand covering mine, was assuring and gentle, and it instilled a peaceful disposition in me, at least at that moment in time. From "The Dream of Lanthe" by Henry Tidey: Tis the wondrous strain that and a lonely rain swells which wondering on the echoing shore, the enthusiast hears at evening, the softer than the west wind's sighing  Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes of that strange lyre whose strings the genii of the breeze sweep, Those lines of rainbow light are like the moonbeams when they fall through some cathedral window, but the teints are such as may not find comparison on earth.

     Part 4 tomorrow.