d
them most immediately was the personal force and dauntless spirit of the
elder man. "He is a _tangata riri_" (i.e., angry man), said a hostile
Maori; "he shuts his tent door upon us, and does not sit by our sides
and talk; he has the _Atua_ upon his lips, and we are afraid of his
anger." He could hold at arm's length two powerful men who were
struggling to fly at one another's throats. He soon won the name of "the
man with the iron thumb," from the fact that on one occasion, while he
held in his hand the key of his study door, he felled to the earth the
leader of a gang of bullies who were bent on doing him bodily injury. On
another occasion a number of angry natives crowded in upon himself and a
companion as they were building a boat. After standing their
interference for some time, the builders seized, one a broken oar and
the other a stout stake, and after a sharp fray, in which the arm of the
carpenter was broken in two places, the intruders were driven from the
spot.

Nor was it only the men who felt the power of his arm. A story is told
of an encounter with some shameless women who had crossed from
Kororareka to taunt his school-girls at Paihia. The missionaries were
busy at a translation meeting, and at first sent some peaceful
messengers to bid the "ship-girls" depart. The messengers came back
discomfited, and the behaviour grew more wanton and defiant. At last,
Henry Williams came forth, umbrella in hand and spectacles on nose. The
whole school came out to watch the encounter. The leader of the band--a
great lady of the place--came on with outstretched tongue and insulting
cries, when "old four eyes," as she called him, gave her a sounding
thwack with his umbrella. Startled by this indignity she turned and
fled. "Duck them," cried the missionary; and before the saucy damsels
could regain their canoe they were thoroughly soused in the water, and
went back (as the narrator says) wetter, if not better, than they came.

No wonder that "Te Wiremu" soon obtained an ascendancy over a people who
idolised physical prowess. But it would be a great mistake to suppose
that he brought to the mission nothing more than the authoritative tone
of the quarter-deck. His piety was deep and self-sacrificing. It was in
order that he might exercise his ministry on shipboard that he had
chosen to come out in a female convict ship, where he had been untiring
in his attempts to uplift the unhappy creatures with which it was
crowded.