cried the two lovers with one voice , as they reached a level space on the brink of a small cascade . `` This glen was made on purpose for our Temple ! '' `` And the glad song of the brook will be always in our ears , '' said Lilias Fay . `` And its long melody shall sing the bliss of our lifetime , '' said Adam Forrester . `` Ye must build no Temple here ! '' murmured their dismal companion . And there again was the old lunatic , standing just on the spot where they meant to rear their lightsome dome , and looking like the embodied symbol of some great woe , that , in forgotten days , had happened there . And , alas ! there had been woe , nor that alone . A young man , more than a hundred years before , had lured hither a girl that loved him , and on this spot had murdered her , and washed his bloody hands in the stream which sung so merrily . And ever since , the victim 's death-shrieks were often heard to echo between the cliffs . `` And see ! '' cried old Gascoigne , `` is the stream yet pure from the stain of the murderer 's hands ? '' `` Methinks it has a tinge of blood , '' faintly answered the Lily ; and being as slight as the gossamer , she trembled and clung to her lover 's arm , whispering , `` let us flee from this dreadful vale ! '' `` Come , then , '' said Adam Forrester , as cheerily as he could ; `` we shall soon find a happier spot . '' They set forth again , young Pilgrims on that quest which millions -- which every child of Earth -- has tried in turn . And were the Lily and her lover to be more fortunate than all those millions ? For a long time , it seemed not so . The dismal shape of the old lunatic still glided behind them ; and for every spot that looked lovely in their eyes , he had some legend of human wrong or suffering , so miserably sad , that his auditors could never afterwards connect the idea of joy with the place where it had happened . Here , a heart-broken woman , kneeling to her child , had been spurned from his feet ; here , a desolate old creature had prayed to the Evil One , and had received a fiendish malignity of soul , in answer to her prayer ; here , a new-born infant , sweet blossom of life , had been found dead , with the impress of its mother 's fingers round its throat ; and here , under a shattered oak , two lovers had been stricken by lightning , and fell blackened corpses in each other 's arms .
The dreary Gascoigne had a gift to know whatever evil and lamentable thing had stained the bosom XXXXX Mother Earth ; and when his funereal voice had told the tale , it appeared like a prophecy of future woe , as well as a tradition of the past .
as behind for from like of than that to with