In love with Emma Haredale

Varden A locksmith

Dolly Varden His daughter
A friend of Emma Haredale's

Simon Tappertit Varden's apprentice

Joe Willet The son of an innkeeper
In love with Dolly Varden

"Maypole Hugh" A giant hostler
In reality, the son of Sir John Chester

Lord George Gordon A deluded nobleman

Gashford His secretary

Dennis A hangman

"Grip" Barnaby's tame raven

BARNABY RUDGE

I

BARNABY'S BOYHOOD

Many years ago a gentleman named Haredale lived at a house called The
Warren, near London. His wife was dead and he had one baby daughter,
Emma.

One morning he was found murdered in his house, which had been robbed.
Both the gardener and the steward, Rudge, were missing, and some people
thought one had done it and some thought the other. But some days later
a disfigured body was found in a pond on the grounds which, by its
clothes and a watch and ring, was recognized as that of Rudge, the
missing steward. Then, of course, every one believed the gardener had
murdered both, and the police searched for him a long time, but he was
never found.

On the same day this cruel murder was discovered, a baby was born to
Mrs. Rudge, the wife of the steward--a pretty boy, though with a
birth-mark on the wrist as red as blood, and a strange look of terror on
the baby face. He was named Barnaby, and his mother loved him all the
more because it was soon seen he was weak-minded, and could never be in
his right senses. She herself, poor woman! seemed never able to forget
the horror of that day.

Geoffrey Haredale, the brother and heir of the murdered man, took up his
abode at The Warren and adopted the little Emma, his niece, as his own
daughter. He was kind to Mrs. Rudge also. Not only did he let her live
rent-free in a house he owned, but he did many a kind deed secretly for
her half-witted son as he grew older.

Barnaby Rudge grew up a strange, weird creature. His hair was long and
red and hung in disorder about his shoulders. His skin was pale, his
eyes bright and his clothes he trimm