You are given an English sentence with a blank, and you need to predict the missing word. After completing, the whole sentence should be gramatically correct and non-ambiguous.

that had its source away back in the woods of the old cuthbert place it was reputed to be an intricate headlong brook in ____ earlier course through those woods with dark secrets of pool and cascade but by the time it reached lynde's hollow it was a quiet well conducted little stream
its