Farmer John had made a wise choice, and he knew it. In his eyes nothing was good enough for his wife, not even the home where he had been born, and where his ancestors for generations had lived and died; so Cammsgill had been entirely rebuilt before that golden September day when John and Mabel Camm came home to begin their new life together. The re-building had been done in such solid fashion that part of the farm-house still stands, well-proportioned and serviceable, after nearly three centuries have passed to test it, showing that he who builds for love builds truly and well. Mabel Camm was a proud woman as she stood at the door of her hillside home and watched the autumn sunlight lighting up her husband's face as he walked across his fields in the valley, or strode, almost with the energetic step of a young man, up the crab-apple bordered track to the farm. Close at his heels followed his collie, looking up into his master's face with adoring affection. Not only every animal on the farm loved the master, the men-servants and maid-servants also would do anything to please him, for was he not ever mindful of their interests as if they had been his own? In those days each labourer had three or four acres of land as of right. This fostered an independent spirit and made their affection a tribute worth the winning.[8] Later on that same year, when winter came, earlier than its wont, the fells were knee-deep in snow and all the beasts were brought for shelter round the farm to protect them from the snow-drifts and bitter weather on the upland pastures. Then it was that at nights in the snug farm-house kitchen, after the day's work was done, John Camm and his young wife together carved their initials on the 'brideswain,' a tall oak chest that held the goodly stock of homespun linen and flax brought by Mabel Camm to her new home. John Camm was something of an artist. His was the design of the interlaced initials. All his life he had been a skilful carver with his tools on the winter evenings, and now he took pleasure in showing his bride the right way to use them and how to fashion her strokes aright. Night after night the two heads bent over their task, but to this day it may still be seen at Cammsgill that one of the two artists was less skilful than the other, for Mabel's curves are more angular and without the careless ease of her husband's. What, however, did unskilful fingers matter when the firelight shone upon two happy faces bending over the work close together, aglow with the inner radiance of two thankful hearts?