Now it was in this same year that the grievous pestilence named the Black Death raged in England; but it was not till the winter had gone by that it reached Amounderness.  Then were seen those terrible days when ships sailed the seas with crews of dead men, and when on land there was burying without sorrow and flight without safety, for though many fled they could not escape the evil, and so many died that the wells of sorrow ran dry.  And because of the horror of so many deaths, it was forbidden to toll the bells any longer lest men should go mad. Often no hand could be got for love or for gold to touch the sick or to carry the departed to their graves.  When the graveyards were filled, thousands were buried, without a prayer or a last look, in deep trenches salted with quicklime, on the commons or in an open field. Many a street in many a town fell suddenly silent and deserted, and grass grew between the stones of the causeway.  Here and there fires were kept burning night and day to purify the air, but this availed little.  In many a thorpe and village all the inhabitants were swept away and even robbers and desperate vagrants were too greatly in fear of infection to enter the ownerless houses.  Sometimes in the fields one saw little children, and perchance an aged woman, trying to manage a plough or to lead a waggon.