The doctor was restless; but it was not on account of any fear of his personal safety,—­he was above that.  The lonely and innocent being whom he had undertaken to protect had filled his mind with a sense of responsibility.  A single day had been long enough for Emily to win a way to his affections, and he had grown to regard her with the tender care of a father.  Occasionally he left his place at the bedside, and went to the window, as if to assure himself that the attack had not already commenced.

In front of the cottage a different sentiment prevailed among the motley group there assembled.  There were twenty men, including Hatchie, all armed with rifle and bowie-knife, and every one anxious for the fight to commence.  Besides their arms, each man was provided with a small cord, and a torch of pitch-wood, the end of which had been plentifully besprinkled with turpentine.

The party was composed mostly of woodmen and boatmen, who had promptly and willingly obeyed the doctor’s summons.  Like most men of their class in that locality, they were hardy and reckless; they had not that healthy horror of a mortal combat which the moralist would gladly see.  Dr. Vaudelier had always been their friend; had always promptly and kindly aided them in their necessities, whether moral, physical, or pecuniary.  As he had laved the fevered brows of their wives and children, so had he said prayers over their dead, in the absence of a clergyman.  He had exhorted the intemperate and the dishonest, and with his purse relieved the needy in their distress.  They were not ungrateful; they appreciated his many kindnesses, and rejoiced in an opportunity to serve him.  These men, notwithstanding their rude speech, their rough exteriors, and their reckless dispositions, were true-hearted men.  They reciprocated the offering of a true friendship, not by smooth speeches and unmeaning smiles, but by actions of manly kindness.  The philosopher in ethics may say what he pleases of the refinements of sympathy; we would not give a single such heart as those gathered on Cottage Island for a whole army of puling, sentimental, hair-splitting moralizers.  They were men of action, not of words; and, though they hesitated not, in what they deemed a good cause, to close with their man in deadly combat, they were true as steel to a friend in the hour of his need.

With these men the exploits of Hatchie, which had been related, and perhaps exaggerated, by Jerry Swinger, who was a leading spirit of the party, had been much applauded, and he had, in spite of the odium of his social position, obtained a powerful influence over them.  They heard him with attention, and deferred to his skill and judgment.  By his advice, and to remove the confusion of the affray from the vicinity of the cottage, it was determined to receive the invaders near the beach where he had overheard Vernon propose to land.  Jerry Swinger, whom natural talent and the wish of the party seemed to indicate as leader, marched the expedition towards the avenue which had been made in the bushes by the ruffians.