The main story surrounds the relationship between Grant "Old Matt" Matthews Senior and Dad Howitt, an elderly, mysterious, learned man who has escaped the buzzing restlessness of the city to live in the backwoods neighborhood of Mutton Hollow. Howitt spends his time alone, acting as a mediator and friend to the mountain people, and trying to recover from his tragic past, which includes the prior deaths of his wife and children, and the later presumed madness and subsequent suicide of his only surviving child, his artist son (later referred to as "Mad Howard").