G. B. Lancaster

“ Since Wi was to give his life to the brown man, it were better that he should not become too English.
Brazenose laughed when he heard of it.
“Wi will convert his hearers by force,” he said. “And he is morally certain to be chucked out before he is priested. He hasn’t an overgood record, and Nature never intended him for this kind of thing.”
“Don’t,” said Lane. “Wi makes me ashamed. He follows the God of our fathers with more reverence than nine-tenths of us do. You know how dead earnest a Maori is when he gets set on a thing? Wi is putting all his soul into this.” ”

“ It was in his strength that Wi took all the pride and delight of a young animal—and in his knowledge of woodcraft—and in the fortune which had given him two languages wherewith to scourge the boy who angered him.
But his temper was purely terrible at times; and when he sought to slay the Mindoorie cook with a sheath-knife, Lane flogged him until his arm fell limp, drawing blood before repentance. ”

“ It was because he understood so much of that part of the Maori which cannot be tabulated that Lane was afraid. When such as Wi give up the game, it is better to forget that they were once true men. For the memory will be painful. Wi had cleansed himself for his work in all faithfulness and honesty, but—Lane shivered, tramping the wet deck. He knew the savage drop in the blood which nothing could purge. Yet it does not poison the veins of more than one man in three hundred.
The Principal was upset, and much annoyed with Wi. Brazenose, when the thing became public, said that he did not wonder. ”

“ The notes were indescribably mournful, and Wi shivered as he answered.
“I am stronger than any man I have ever stripped to. I am stronger than any man I have ever seen, I think. And we Maori are not as you pakeha. Our passions have not had the centuries of repression. ”

“ He’s not likely to look at a Maori, and he daren’t look at a white girl.”
Between the Maori man and the Maori woman there is all this difference. The woman may mate with a white man. For the Maori man there is nothing of this kind. No white woman weds with him, to the third generation. And he shapes his life accordingly, and has no desire that it should be otherwise. In his dignified soul he has toleration for the alien, and perhaps a little contempt.
But Wi had been bred to love an Englishman, and he had lived among pakeha until he had forgot this unwritten law. ”

“ And if Ware comes again to tell me that I am drunk, I will pull him in half. In our creed there is no punishment after death. So perhaps this is better.”
“And have you forgotten me?”
There was a quick movement from the window. But it stilled again.
“No, I have not forgotten you. I think I should have been angry once if it had been said that I should leave you. But it does not matter now. I will not live with you again. ”

“ A Maori can never be absolutely frank. He has too many generations that guarded life with the tongue behind him. But Wi gave to this white man more than the native generally gives, and Lane was not ungrateful. ”

“ Mrs. Blayne agreed without reservation.
“Must ha’ the strength of a elegant,” she said.
“An’ the reach of it, too, barrin’ the trunk. I thought I stud six fut from him. ‘What’ll yer want fur payment?’ says I, gigglin’ an’ gaspin’. ‘Jest this,’ says he, an’ kisses me fair on the mouth. Then they goes off laughin’, him swingin’ head an’ shoulders above Eru. And I didn’t wipe off that kiss.”
The college students did their own work, and Henare Poihewa, whose father was so great a chief that his real name could never be mentioned, thought it no shame to scrub out his cubicle twice a week. ”