An unnamed narrator sets out innocently enough on a follow-the-road kind of drive in the Redwood Empire in Northern California. Taking a mountain road off historic Highway 101 he stops at a little place called Millbank and that's where it all begins. Enchanted by the serenity found in a grove of towering redwood trees he follows an impulse to stay on a few days at Millbank's Hopkins Lodge. In time, but not immediately, led by the mysterious singing of staunch old Protestant hymns he meets John P