All three had equally surrendered themselves to hilarity--unsympathetic, as it was uncontrollable.

Fritz had not a friend on the ground.
Full ten minutes must have elapsed before any of them could check his loud cachinnations; but long before that time, the butt of their ridicule had betaken himself out of sight--having moved away from the spot, where he had been robbed of his supper, and retired, with an offended and sneaking air, to the more friendly concealment of the hovel.
It was some time before our adventurers could recover their serious mood; but the subject of their mirth being now out of their sight, went gradually also out of their minds.
It might be wondered that, circumstanced as they were, they had thus given way to a fit of jollity.

But, indeed, there was nothing wonderful about it.

On the contrary, it was perfectly natural--perfectly true to the instincts of the human soul--to be thus stirred: joy and sorrow following each other in periodic succession--as certainly as day follows night, or fair weather succeeds to the storm.
Though we know not the why and the wherefore of this, we can easily believe that a wise Providence has ordered it so.

A poet who has sung sweetly says, that:-- "Spring would be but gloomy weather, If we had nothing else but Spring;" and our own experience proclaims the truth conveyed in the distich.
He who has lived in the tropical lands of ever-spring--where the leaves never fall, and the flowers never fade--can well confirm the fact: that even spring itself may in time become tiresome! We long for the winter--its frost and snow, and cold bitter winds.