JUBA.
There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in Agellius’s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy, wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange, half-whispered laugh.
“He, he, he!” he cried; “so you are on your knees, Agellius.”
“Why shouldn’t I be at this hour,” answered Agellius, “and before I go to bed?”
[pg 31]
“O, every one to his taste, of course,” said Juba; “but to an unprejudiced mind there is something unworthy in the act.”
“Why, Juba?” said his brother somewhat sharply; “don’t you profess any religion at all?”
“Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don’t,” answered Juba; “but never shall it be a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your oath of that.”
“What ails you to come here at this time of night?” asked Agellius; “who asked for your company?”
“I will come just when I please,” said the other, “and go when I please. I won’t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me?”
“Then,” said Agellius, “you’ll never get peace or comfort as long as you live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come.”
Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face, and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. “I want no more than I have; I am well content,” he said.
“Contented with yourself,” retorted Agellius.
“Of course,” Juba replied; “whom ought one to wish rather to content?”
“I suppose, your Creator.”
“Creator,” answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of superiority; “Creator;—that, I consider, is an assumption.”
[pg 32]
“O, my dear brother,” cried Agellius, “don’t go on in that dreadful way!”
“ ‘Go on!’ who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have brought in the belief? The Christians. ’Tis the Christians that began it. The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who began the dispute but you?”
“Well, if I did,” answered Agellius; “but I didn’t. You began in coming here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me at this hour?”
There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling of every kind, from what is called heart, as if he had been a stone. In answer to his brother’s question, he quietly said, “I have been down there,” pointing in the direction of the woods.
An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother’s face, and for a moment he was silent. At length he said, “You don’t mean to say you have been down to poor mother?”
“I do,” said Juba.
There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the conversation. “You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last several years.”
Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs.
“At one time I thought you would have been baptized,” his brother continued.
“That was my weakness,” answered Juba; “it was [pg 33]a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop’s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me.”
“Oh that you had yielded to your wish!” cried Agellius.
Juba looked superior. “The fit passed,” he said. “I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion;” and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many.
“Well,” said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, “what brings you here so late?”
“I was on my way to Jucundus,” he answered, “and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river.”
Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. “My poor fellow,” he said, “what were you there for?”
“To see the world,” answered Juba; “it’s unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn’t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots. There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm.”
[pg 34]
“No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog?”
“You don’t take just views of human nature,” answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. “Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog,” and he laughed. “This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please.”
“Happiness!” cried Agellius; “where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness?”
“What do you know about such matters?” asked Juba. “Did you ever see them? Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I’d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten.”
“Now, as I live, you shan’t stop here one instant longer!” cried out Agellius, starting up. “Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don’t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others.”
“I am as good as you any day,” said Juba.
“I don’t set myself up,” answered Agellius, “but it’s impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do.”
[pg 35]
“Christian and unbeliever!” said Juba, slowly. “I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they are confounded.” He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, “If I were a Christian, I’d be so in earnest: else I’d be an honest heathen.”
Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment.
“I despise you,” said Juba; “you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you’re not made of that stuff. You’re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave.