It was Sunday; yet at Canterbury the streets were empty; strangest of all, there was not even a priest in sight, and no stroke of a bell fell upon my ear.

The mournfulness of death was everywhere.

I couldn't understand it.

At last, in the further edge of that town I saw a small funeral procession -- just a family and a few friends following a coffin--no priest; a funeral without bell, book, or candle; there was a church there close at hand, but they passed it by weeping, and did not enter it; I glanced up at the belfry, and there hung the bell, shrouded in black, and its tongue tied back.

Now I knew! Now I understood the stupendous calamity that had overtaken England.