But of late both--and he particularly--had been wrought more and more by the passion of love. Ever since the refusal of the minister at Inverglas to marry them, because of the feud between Torcall Cameron and Anabal Gilchrist, and of the ban laid by each against the offspring of the other, they had troubled themselves no more about what, after all, to them, in their remote life in these mountain solitudes, meant little. In the dewy, moth-haunted, fragrant nights of May, when it was never quite dark upon the hills, and even in the forest the pine-boles loomed shadowy, they had become dearer than ever to each other. Day by day thereafter their joy had grown, like a flower moving ever to the sun; and as it grew, the roots deepened, and the tendrils met and intertwined round the two hearts, till at last they were drawn together and became one, as two moving rays of light will converge into one beam, or the song of two singers blend and become as the song of one. As the weeks passed, the wonder of the dream became at times a brooding passion, at times almost an ecstasy. Ossian and the poets of old speak of a strange frenzy that came upon the brave; and, sure, there is a _mircath_[16] in love now and again in the world, in the green, remote places at least. Aodh the islander, and Ian-bàn of the hills, and other dreamer-poets know of it--the _mirdhei_, the passion that is deeper than passion, the dream that is beyond the dreamer, the ecstasy that is the rapture of the soul, with the body nigh forgot. [16] The "mircath," or war-frenzy, is _mire-chath_, the "passion of battle," as the "mirdeeay" is _mire-dheidh_, the "passion of longing." The word Darthula--_infra_--is a later Gaelic variant of _Dearduil_ (almost identically pronounced), the Scoto-Gaelic equivalent of the Erse _Deirdrê_, the most beautiful woman of old. This _mirdhei_ was now more and more upon Alan; upon Sorcha, too, the dream-spell lay. So it was in a glad silence that he watched her coming. For the moment she was not Sorcha, but a _Bándia-nan-slèibhtean_, a goddess of the hills, fair as the _Banrigh-nan-Aillsean_, the fairy queen. Often, singing or telling her some of the songs of Oisìn mhic Fhionn, he had called her _his_ Darthula, after that fairest of women in the days of old, because she too had deep eyes of beauty and wonder. Therefore the word came out of his heart, like the single mating-note of a mavis, when, as she drew nigh to him and whispered low, "_Alan! Alan!_" he murmured only "_Darthula ... Darthula-mochree!_" In a few words she told him the marvellous news: Torcall and Anabal at peace; her father now at Ardoch-beag! At first he too could scarce believe it. Then, little by little, the smaller wonder waned, and the wonder of his love--the wonder of Sorcha grew.