The Glass Village

Johnny sank into the aged pine captain’s chair by the four-poster, wiping his face. Thinking came hard in this airless, supercharged room. What idiots they had been to think at all, to “plan” a “campaign.” This sort of mindless tenacity, he thought, can’t be argued or wheedled or prayed into letting go. It was a blind force, as manageable as the winds. It only went to prove what he had known for a long time now, that man was a chaos, without rhyme or reason; that he blundered about like a maddened animal in the delicate balance of the world, smashing and disrupting, eager only for his own destruction. Compared with the vast and plunging mob, how many beings of wisdom and order and creativeness stood out? A miserable few, working wonders, but always against mind-shattering odds, and doomed in the end to go down with their works, cities and prophets, appliances and arts. The first men to set foot on Mars would find, not goggle-eyed pinheads with antennae, or supermen, but lifeless fused deserts still radiating death. In the evolution of life there was no gene of the spirit; God, Who provided for all things, had left the most important thing out...

“Mr. Shinn.”

“Yes?” Johnny looked up. It was Samuel Sheare. The room was suddenly quiet. Hube Hemus was surrounded by his pliable neighbors, and he was whispering to them.

“I think,” said Mr. Sheare in a low voice, “somethin’ very bad is goin’ to happen.”

“Sure,” said Johnny. “And as far as I’m concerned, the sooner the better.”

“Are you one of them, too?” cried the minister.

“What?” Johnny was surprised.

“Givin’ in? Givin’ up?”

“I didn’t give up, padre. But what do you expect me to do?”

“Fight error and evil!”

“Even unto death? All right, Mr. Sheare, I was a chronic neck-sticker-outer in my day. But what does it accomplish? How does that change anything?”

“It does, it does,” said Mr. Sheare, wringing his hands. “We mustn’t despair, above all we mustn’t despair...” He bent over Johnny, whispering. “Mr. Shinn, there’s no time for talk. They’re confused, they’re poor and sick, and in their extremity they’re plottin’ somethin’ wicked. If you can get out of here and downstairs to warn the others, I’ll stay and try to distract their attention—”

“The door is locked and Burney Hackett’s on the other side, Mr. Sheare.” Johnny squeezed the little man’s hand. “Look. I know this goes down hard with a man like you, padre. There’s one way to lick this — for a while, anyway.”

“How?”

“By pretending we’re won over.”

“Won over?”

“If you and I vote guilty, they’ll be satisfied. That will get Kowalczyk a reprieve—”

Mr. Sheare straightened. “No,” he said coldly. “You’re makin’ fun of me, Mr. Shinn.”

“But I’m not!” Johnny felt anger rising. “Isn’t the object to save Kowalczyk? That may do it. This trial doesn’t mean anything, Mr. Sheare. The whole thing is a ruse — was from the beginning! It’s not the real thing.”

“Who knows,” asked Mr. Sheare oddly, “what’s the real thing and what’s not? I won’t, I can’t, do what I know to be wrong, Mr. Shinn. Nor can you.”

“You think so?” Johnny smiled with violence. “A man can do anything. I’ve seen good Joes, firstclass soldiers, pining away for their loved ones, staunch patriots, faithful churchgoers, who were made to deny and betray their buddies, their wives, their children, their country, their God — every last thing they believed in. They didn’t want to do it, Mr. Sheare, but they did.”

“And you’ve also seen men who did not,” cried the minister scornfully, “but you choose not to remember those! Mr. Shinn, if you don’t stand up now and do what you can, you’re worse than Hube Hemus and Mert Isbel and Peter Berry — you’re worse than the lot of ’em put together! Wrong as they are, they’re at least doin’ what they’re doin’ ’cause they believe in it. But the man who knows what’s right and won’t stick by it — he’s a lost man, Mr. Shinn, and the world’s lost with him.”

Samuel Sheare darted to the door. The key was in the lock. He turned it with trembling fingers and yanked the door open. Constable Hackett faced about.

“Reached a verdict?” he yawned. “’Bout time.”

Mr. Sheare dashed by him. But before the minister could take two steps in the hall, Hube Hemus was upon him.

“No, Mr. Sheare,” Hemus panted. “No.”

Then the others were there, and before Hackett’s unbelieving eyes they dragged their pastor back into the bedroom. Johnny was half out of his chair, staring.

“Set your back against that door, Burney,” rapped Hemus. His expressionless glance was on Johnny. “Orville, watch him.”

Johnny felt his arm clutched and paralyzed. Orville Pangman said in a low voice, “Don’t try nothin’, Mr. Shinn, and ye won’t git hurt.”

And Samuel Sheare’s eyes were on him, too. And a great roaring came into Johnny’s ears, and he felt for the back of the chair.

“We’re givin’ ye one last chance,” said Hube Hemus. “Mr. Sheare, will ye change your vote?”

“No,” said Samuel Sheare.

Johnny struggled to get away from those eyes. But they bored through his lids, burning.

“Mr. Shinn, will you?”