[1] Two brothers, Calum (a simple-minded hunchback) and Neil, are working in the forest of a Scottish country house during five autumn days (Monday to Thursday) in 1943, gathering cones that will replenish the forest which is to be cut down for the war effort.

The harmony of their life together is shadowed by the obsessive hatred of Duror, the gamekeeper, who since childhood has disliked anything he finds "mis-shapen".

We also learn that because of his wife's illness where she lies in her bed all day growing larger, he relates to Calum in the sense of his deformity and thus conveys a reason why he grew so much resentment towards him.

Lady Runcie-Campbell, the aristocratic landowner, dislikes having the two brothers on the estate, and tries to avoid communicating with them.

The novel is filled with heavy symbolism, including some of the following: The Cone Gatherers has sometimes been compared to John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men due to the similarities in theme, plot and characters, although the novel grew directly out of Jenkins' personal experiences in the Second World War.