While Frank and his companions were accompanying Lee toward home, some
of the Regulators were indulging in feelings of the deepest malice;
and there were about a dozen of them--Frank's old enemies--who
determined that he should not go unpunished. But there were others who
began to see how cowardly they had acted in attacking a defenseless
boy, for the only reason that he was a bad boy, and to fear that they
had lost the good-will of Frank and his associates. The village boys,
with a few exceptions, were accustomed to look up to Frank as a sort
of leader; not that he aspired to the position, but his generosity,
and the easy way he had of settling the disputes that sometimes arose
among the boys, had won for him many a fast friend. We have seen,
however, that he was not beloved by all; every good boy has his
enemies, and Frank, of course, had his share of them. They were boys
who were jealous of him, and hated him because he held a position in
the estimation of the village people to which they could not attain.
But this class was very small, comprising, as we have said, about a
dozen of the Regulators; and, while they were enraged at their defeat,
and studying plans for revenge, the others were repenting of their
folly, and trying to think of some way by which they might regain
their lost reputation.

Charles's overbearing and haughty manner was so different from Frank's
kind, obliging ways, that they had already grown tired of his company,
and began to think seriously of having nothing more to do with him;
and the things that had just transpired served to convince them that
the sooner they left him the better.

As soon as Lee and his gallant defenders had disappeared, one of the