The Cone Gatherers Read Online Free Page A

in their thousands under the wheels of the army trucks. Surely their deaths like the frogs’ could not be called murder.
    As he went on his way again to reach the road, he thought how incomprehensible and unjust it was that in Europe, in Africa, and in China, many tall, strong, healthy, brave, intelligent men were killing one another, while in that dirty little hut those two sub-humans lived in peace, as if under God’s protection. He could not understand that, and he was sure nobody could.

CHAPTER TWO
    Duror had walked about a quarter of a mile along the road when a motor car, with masked headlights, overtook and passed him, hooting peevishly. It drew up a short way in front, with two apologetic and welcoming toots of its horn. When he came nearer he recognised it as Dr Matheson’s car, and wished he had waited in the wood a half-hour longer.
    The old man grinned at him.
    â€˜Thought I recognised your stalwart figure, Duror,’ he chuckled. ‘You’re not frightened, though, strolling along like that in the dark. Country folk these days ought to be supplied with luminous behinds. Been out on the prowl for poachers?’
    â€˜Yes, doctor.’
    The doctor smacked his lips. ‘Damned if I blame them,’ he said, ‘with meat as scarce as it is. You know I’m partial to a tender haunch of venison myself. Get in. I’ll take you as far as the gate.’
    Duror hesitated: he was in no mood to suffer the doctor’s inquisitive inanities.
    â€˜Put your gun at the back. Hope it’s not loaded. I hate the things. If you’d your dogs with you, damned if I would have stopped. Can’t abide the brutes in a car. My wife used to have one, a brown spaniel; it would keep licking the back of my neck. She said it was only showing its affection. Queer affection, eh, to tickle me into the front of a bus. Get in, man. What are you waiting for?’
    Duror climbed in, placing his gun beside the doctor’s bag on the back seat.
    Soon they were moving on again.
    â€˜Is Black still at Laggan?’ asked the doctor.
    â€˜Aye.’
    Black was the estate forester. He had been loaned by his mistress to the Timber Control Authorities, who were felling a wood at Laggan. He had had to accept the transfer as a national service. In the spring he would return to superintend the cutting down of his own wood.
    The doctor was smiling slyly.
    â€˜So you’re the monarch of the woods?’ he asked.
    Duror said nothing.
    â€˜A nice fellow, Tom Black,’ said the doctor, ‘but a shade too severe and upright for comfortable Christian intercourse. I understand he believes that every leaf that falls belongs to his master.’
    â€˜So it does.’
    â€˜In theory, certainly. But you and I know, as men of the world, that a wide breathing-space must be allowed between theory and practice; otherwise ordinary mortals like us would be suffocated.’
    Duror made no comment.
    â€˜Shoot any deer these days?’
    â€˜Now and again.’
    The doctor, sniffing hard, was not only in fancy relishing venison; he was also indicating that, in Black’s absence, deer might safely be killed and shared with a friend.
    â€˜Wolf it all up at the big house, I suppose?’
    â€˜Most of it goes to hospitals.’
    The doctor was surprised; he was even shocked; he whistled. ‘Is that so? Take care of the sick, and let the healthy pine.’ Uneasiness entered his laughter as Duror glanced at him. ‘A joke, Duror,’ he added, ‘clean against all professional ethics. But all the same it is damned scun-nersome, spam, spam, spam, at every meal. One of the pleasures I thought I could look forward to in my old age was that of the palate. They tell me even as a baby in my pram I chose the choicest cherry. Why not? Fine eating’s a civilised pastime, and fine drinking too, of course. God, how scarce good whisky’s become. It’s not to be had for love nor