The next day was rather far advanced when I woke up and started from bed, on instantly remembering that I must be gone without delay. During a hasty breakfast I could not refrain from speaking to the landlord of the noises which had disturbed me so much in my chamber. "Was the wind high or stormy last night?" I began. "No; the weather was rather calm," said he, with his mouth full, for he was making a hearty, old-fashioned breakfast of sliced beef, and nut-brown, home-brewed ale. "Were any persons quarrelling or fighting hereabout?" "When?" "Why, all night; till two in the morning at least." "I heard not a sound--the house was perfectly quiet." This statement the waiter, ostler, and landlady hastened to corroborate. "Then," said I, "by Jove your inn is haunted." "Take care what you say, my good fellow," replied the landlord, becoming angry; "for lookee, my house has as good a reputation as any in the county of Surrey, so none of your tricks, soldier." "Then the devil was in my chimney all last night, say what you will," I responded with equal, if not greater, irritation. On hearing this the landlord's colour changed visibly. He went immediately to my room, accompanied by a servant, who soon returned making a great outcry, and stating that a man had been found wedged in the chimney, that by looking up with a lighted candle, his heels could be seen dangling some five feet or more above the mantelpiece. On hearing these tidings, the whole household became excited, and crowded to the apartment I had so lately quitted. On looking up I could see, amid the obscurity of the chimney, the feet of a man, but they were beyond our reach. Workmen were soon procured; the panelling was removed; then the bricks were taken out, a breach made, and in something less than an hour, the dead body of a man was exhumed, all begrimed and covered with soot and lime. He had evidently died of suffocation, having reached a portion of the chimney where he could neither descend further nor work his way up again, and had there miserably perished; being literally choked by the soot and lime, of which he had inhaled such quantities in his fruitless struggles and painful gaspings, that his foam-covered mouth and bloodshot eyes were quite filled with them. His left hand was found to have been recently mutilated; his right still grasped a sharp clasp knife, which was doubtless intended for _my_ behoof, as an examination proved the body to be that of the traveller who had occupied No. 6, in the upper gallery--the figure I had detected, watching in the gloom, when retiring to rest. As some housebreaking implements were found in his pocket, the landlord averred that he had been in search of the strong-box and plate-room; but I had my own idea of his too probable errand, and thus the terrible sounds which had so long disturbed me, and that last hoarse cry of despair and death, were completely accounted for.