After the defeat of Murdoch Mackintosh and the marriage of Andrew to Nairne, the glen was at peace. Andrew Cameron was a benevolent Laird, and he devoted much time and energy to ensuring that the Cameron’s and the Mackintosh’s lived harmoniously together.

No longer did the Cameron’s live in the crofts high on the mountainside, but instead they brought their animals down to the pastures of the glen and farmed around the castle. There was great prosperity amongst the people, and it was said that nowhere else in Scotland did folks live so peacefully together.

The forest dwellers too came out of hiding and under Andrew’s wise leadership there was much happiness, for the Laird of the Cameron’s was not only as brave as his father, but he was also just as kind. He welcomed Rhona and Stewart to live with him and Nairne at the castle. Alongside Una and Duncan, who themselves later found a romantic attraction, the family lived together happily for many years.

Andrew and Nairne were blessed with three bonnie bairns, two boys and a girl. The eldest they named Stewart, in honor of Andrew’s stepfather, and the second they named Rory, each had a second name too, Iain, after Andrew’s father and the memory of the old Laird was always upheld, so that his grandchildren often spoke of him. The girl was a bonnie lassie, just like her mother, and even at a tender age, all who saw her commented upon her beauty. Her name was Lorna, and she was the apple of her mother’s eye and that of her grandmother’s who doted upon her, often spoiling her with gifts.

With peace having come upon the glen and the two clans united, Andrew passed his days happily with Nairne. They would often take walks out into the forest, visiting Cairstine and Alistair at their cottage in the woods, or swimming in the pools. Andrew’s Godmother had remained in the forest, but she often made the walk to the castle to see Rhona or to sell her herbs at the market.

It was to that same pool where they had first met that they often returned, walking together through the forest hand in hand. The cares of the past were long forgotten, and the hardships of their early days now long gone. The glen was at peace, and though Andrew still wore his sword at his side, he never had cause to draw it in defence. Instead, it was a symbol of his authority and one which all looked up to and respected.

It was a bright summer day, the sky blue and clear, as together Andrew and Nairne made their way through the forest towards the pool. They were accompanied by their children, the three bairns running ahead with the dogs and not a happier scene could be imagined in all the glens of Scotland.

“I wonder how many times ye and I have walked this way, Andrew?” Nairne ran her hands through a bank of wildflowers growing along the side of the path, their scent perfuming the air, and plucked a bunch from the ground and brought it close to her face.

“Many, many times,” Andrew laughed, as he turned to kiss her.

“And every time I see something new, something more beautiful than before,” and  looking up at the canopy above, she twirled around in a little dance, “see up there, the way the trees enfold us, tis’ like walking through an archway in some grand castle, nature is a far better architect than man.”

“And now we can show the bairns the beauty of this place tae,” Andrew looked ahead to where Stewart, Rory and Lorna were playing together up ahead.

“Aye, and they tae delight in this place, just like their mother and father.”

“Except they never have tae sneak off here as we used tae,” Andrew shook his head in good humor, as they emerged hand in hand into the glade where the waterfall gushed into the pool from high above on the mountainside.

“May we swim, mother?” Rory called out to Nairne, as the three children stood upon the bank by the pool.

“Aye, ye may swim, see who can be the first tae reach the waterfall and then challenge yer father tae follow y.” Nairne settled herself down on the rock upon which she used to wait for Andrew all those years ago.

“If I am swimming, then so are ye,” Andrew called back to her, wading into the water.

“I shall watch, but the sun is warm, and so I may be persuaded tae join ye,” Nairne watched as her husband swam after the children who had already struck out strongly across the water towards the waterfall.

They remained there for much of the day, and it was a scene often repeated in the years to come. Andrew, Nairne and the bairns would make their way into the forest and swim in the pool. As the three youngsters grew older, they would often go there alone, taking the same paths and ways that their parents had done in their youth. The forest was as much their home as the castle, and they would often visit Cairstine and Alistair, who had been appointed Godparents of the children, continuing the family tradition.

As the years went by, Nairne and Andrew lived a happy life together, though at times it was, like any life, tinged with sadness. Twenty-one years of marriage to Murdoch Mackintosh had taken its toll upon Nairne’s mother, Una. As time went by, she grew weaker and less able to manage without her daughter’s help. It was five years after Nairne and Andrew’s marriage that she passed away laid to rest in the village Kirk where Nairne would often go and visit her, sitting by her mother’s tomb and speaking with her as if still alive.

It had been her mother and her mother alone that had made life bearable for Nairne before she met Andrew and she never forgot the gentle kindness of the woman who had so long protected her against her father’s wicked ways. His name was all but forgotten, and it was only in idle moments that Nairne’s thoughts turned to her father. She had no wish to hold his memory and did her best to forget him, the evils of the past long gone as she looked forward to a happy future ahead.

Rhona and Stewart also grew old, the years of hardship on the crofts taking their toll, but Rhona was hardy, and she lived for many years. Outliving both Stewart and Duncan to reach a ripe old age. Her twenty-one years of exile on the crofts had given her a determination unmatched by others, and now that she had returned home to the castle, had every intention of living life to the full. She delighted in her grandchildren and would often accompany them into the forest to swim at the pool. Indeed, so often did she take them there, that Andrew had to remind her of her own words about duties and chores when the bairns were once again missing from their lessons.

Young Stewart grew into a fine figure of a man, and since his earliest years, was told that it was his destiny to become Laird. A fate which, unlike his father, he relished. Raised in the castle, with all its pomp and grandeur, he grew into a natural successor to his father, one who would surely inherit Andrew’s kindness and benevolence, not to mention his strength and nobility.

“Ye have a fine inheritance before ye,” Andrew said one afternoon, as he and Stewart rode out of the forest and up onto the mountainside.

Stewart was now eighteen, and his father had brought him up to the crofts to show him where the Cameron’s once lived in exile and make him see just how hard-fought their lives had once been.

“And this is where ye lived, father?” the boy surveyed the scene, the crofts lying in some disrepair, abandoned by the Cameron’s who now lived around the castle.

He was a good-looking boy, with his mother’s eyes and his father’s stature, and he rode proudly upon his horse, following his father, the man he looked up to and respected more than any another.

“Aye, as a laddie, and it is from here that we launched our attack upon the castle. Marching down intae the forest and routing Murdoch on the battlefield.”

He rarely had cause to come here anymore, but the sight of the crofts always brought back a flood of memories as he recalled both the happy and sad times of life up in the hills.

“And from here ye used tae run down intae the forest tae meet mother by the pool?” Stewart smiled at his father, who still blushed a little after all these years.

“Aye, and when ye meet a lassie who so captures yer heart as yer mother did mine then I expect ye shall do the same, laddie,” Andrew dismounted his horse and led it towards the crofts.

“It is a lonely place,” Stewart followed his father to the ruined croft which had once been home to Rhona, Stewart, Duncan and Andrew.

“Aye, it had tae be, else we would have felt the wrath of the Mackintosh’s on more occasions than we did.”

“I cannae believe that we were once at war with them. Now they are our closest friends, there is no distinction between us, the Mackintosh’s are our kin, just as the forest folk are,” Stewart shook his head in disbelief.

“Aye, but it was not always so, laddie, look behind ye.” Andrew pointed out over the glen where the forest lay thick and vast before them. “The forest was a hiding place for all those who felt Murdoch’s wrath, and here at the crofts, we were only able tae defend ourselves because of the mountainside which made an attack difficult. We were a scattered people, and many doubted that we could ever achieve victory over Murdoch and his men, but we prevailed, and now the glen is at peace.”

The two stood together for some time, looking out over the forest and towards the far-off castle in the distance.

“I hope there shall never see such conflict again,” Stewart said, “and I shall pledge to keep this glen a place of peace for all who come under the protection of the Cameron banner.”

Andrew smiled and placed his hand onto his son’s shoulder.

“Ye are a good laddie, and I hope that like yer father ye shall find happiness with a good lassie, yer mother is the love of my life, and she has given me ye three bairns as a further blessing. Ye have a Cameron’s heart, Stewart , but ye also have that of a Mackintosh tae. I have no doubt that ye will make a fine Laird, though I hope for many more years more myself before that day comes.”

“Many more years, father, for ye and for mother.” Together they set off back down the mountainside, riding sided by side as father and son, Laird and heir, Cameron and Cameron.

Andrew and Nairne did have many more years together, and even in their old age, they still walked out to the pool and swam, remembering their youth and ever rekindling their passion for one another. Theirs was a love that ran even deeper than the pool in the glade where first they had met, a love so profound that it had united two peoples together as one. Neither Nairne nor Andrew could imagine life without the other, and together they spent the rest of their lives as one, delighting in all that life had to offer them. A happier union could not be imagined, and each day, they spoke of their love for each other, a love once forbidden and now realised for eternity.

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