John Willet is the landlord of the Maypole, an inn on the edge of the Epping Forest a short distance from London. On a March evening, several guests gather in the Maypole. One of them is a stranger who asks about the brick house nearby. Joe Willet, John’s son, answers that the house is known as the Warren and belongs to Mr. Haredale. The stranger asks about a young lady who alighted from a carriage there; he suggests she might be Mr. Haredale’s daughter. Joe replies that Mr. Haredale is single (which, the stranger points out, never stopped some people from having a daughter). A young man leaves and Joe accompanies him to light his way to the door.

When Joe returns, he tries to add to the conversation of the other men, but his father tells him to be silent and listen to his elders. The other men agree. Solomon Daisy, the parish clerk, tells the story of the Haredales. The present Mr. Haredale had an older brother, Reuben, who owned the Warren at that time. He had one daughter, who is the young lady seen by the stranger. Reuben was murdered twenty-two years before, holding on to a bell, which Solomon Daisy had heard ringing in the night. The steward and the gardener were both missing. The body of Barnaby Rudge, the steward, was found in a ditch later. It is thus assumed that the gardener was the murderer.

The stranger leaves, though Joe recommends that he spend the night. The stranger strikes Joe with the butt of his whip and rides off. As he rides furiously down the road in the night, he almost runs into a wagon driven by Gabriel Varden, a blacksmith from London. The stranger demands a light, claiming that Gabriel’s wheel has damaged his horse. When it is determined that horse is uninjured, the stranger begins to hand back the light but throws it on the ground and crushes it when he sees Gabriel’s face. He calls him by name, threatening him, though Gabriel does not recognize the stranger. Afterward, Gabriel decides to go to the Maypole to get a light, though he had promised his wife he would not stop there.

At the Maypole, Gabriel gives his account of the stranger. Joe wishes the man would come back so he could strike him back. He blames his father for having set the example of treating him like a child. Gabriel tries to make peace between father and son, but Joe tells him that he is considering leaving the Maypole. He asks about Gabriel’s daughter, Dolly; he is clearly interested in her, though Gabriel does not see this.

Gabriel returns to London, though he is slightly intoxicated. As he nears his home, he hears cries. When he arrives at the source of the cries, he sees a man holding a torch and standing over a body. Gabriel knows the one holding the torch is young Barnaby Rudge, who is feeble-minded. He had come across a robbery in progress. Gabriel discovers that the man is not dead. Barnaby declares that he knows the man’s identity—he had gone out wooing that day—but is so shaken that he is not able to say who he is or what happened. With Barnaby’s assistance, Gabriel places the injured man in his carriage and takes him to Barnaby’s home in the hopes that Barnaby’s mother might be able to help.