"Our hero, James Lewis MacFarlane, a stalwart Scotsman, has recently been mustered out of the army, and discharged himself from an army hospital.  He embodies qualities we hope to instill in our children or ourselves, though he wrestles with himself frequently, in an effort to maintain the true, the beautiful, and the good in his life.  He has a wound that won’t heal despite the best of care in a wonderful spa/hospital. So he sets off on a Great Adventure to see if he can find his own cure and put himself back into useful public life."