ed most curiously with bits of gaudy
lace and bright ribbons and glass toys. He wore a cluster of broken
peacock feathers in his hat and girded at his side was the broken hilt
of an old sword without a blade. But strangest of all was a little
wicker basket he always carried on his back. When he set this down and
opened it, there hopped out a tame raven who would cock its head on one
side and say hoarsely and very knowingly:

"Hello! Hello! Hello! What's the matter here? Keep up your spirits.
Never say die. I'm a devil, I'm a devil, I'm a devil! Hurrah!"

Then it would whistle or make a noise like the drawing of a cork out of
a bottle, repeated a great many times, and flap its wings against its
sides as if it were bursting with laughter. This raven was named Grip
and was Barnaby's constant companion. The neighbors used to say it was
one hundred and twenty years old (for ravens live a very long time), and
some said it knew altogether too much to be only a bird. But Barnaby
would hear nothing said against it, and, next to his mother, loved it
better than anything in the world.

Barnaby knew that folks called him half-witted, but he cared little for
that. Sometimes he would laugh at what they said.

"Why," he would say, "how much better to be silly than as wise as you!
_You_ don't see shadowy people like those that live in sleep--not you.
Nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass, nor swift ghosts when it blows
hard, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor see men stalking in the
sky--not you. I lead a merrier life than you with all your cleverness.
_You're_ the dull men. _We're_ the bright ones. Ha, ha! I'll not change
with you, not I!"

Haredale, who had been so kind to Barnaby's mother, was a burly, stern
man who had few acquaintances and lived much alone. When first he came
to live at The Warren an enemy of his, Sir John Chester, had circulated
suspicious rumors about him, so that some came half to believe he
himself had had something to do with his brother's murder.

These whispers so affected Haredale that as time passed he grew gloomy
and morose and lived in seclusion, thinking only how he could solve the
mystery of the murder, and loving more and more the little Emma as she
grew into a beautiful girl. He neglected The Warren so that the property
looked quite desolate and ruined, and at length superstitious people in
the neighborhood came to mutter that it was haunted by the ghost of
Rudge, the steward, whose body