The boys helped Major Lund to unfasten the boat from its moorings. A puff of wind filled out the white sail and they were soon off. "They thought I was asleep this morning when they were trimming my room," Sigrid confided to Erik, who was showing her how to steer the boat. "Fie on you, Sigrid!" said Erik, quite seriously, but he gave her plump cheek a little pinch. "It was such fun," Sigrid laughed softly. "When I heard Elsa tell Anders his boots squeaked, I thought I couldn't keep quiet a second longer." "Look at all those snipe, Erik," Major Lund interrupted. The boat was sailing quite close to the shore. Several of these long-legged birds, which were picking their way across the beach, were startled by the voices and flew into the air. "What a queer call they have, uncle," said Elsa. "Listen a moment till you hear it again," said Major Lund. They were very quiet for a couple of minutes. "It sounds like the noise old Maja makes when he wants us to give him a lump of sugar," said Gerda. "They make that sound with their wings as they fly," said Major Lund. "The 'horse-cuckoo,' some people call the snipe. Do you know how it received that name?" "Do tell us, father," said Anders. "It is just a short story about a careless farmer who had a lazy servant. For many days, the servant rode his master's horse to pasture without giving the poor animal any water to drink. That was a very dry summer, so the horse suffered greatly. "One day the farmer wanted to drive to market. So he said to his servant: "'Fetch my horse from the pasture.' "The servant went after the horse, but it had disappeared. He delayed so long that the master finally followed him into the field. But he could not find the horse either. Just as they had given up the search, they heard a neigh. In the next meadow, where they had been hunting, they saw the horse drinking at a spring. "'Are you really there?' cried the farmer. He hastened over the stone wall to catch the horse. As he was about to put the halter over its neck, the horse disappeared and a snipe flew into the air. There the bird neighed till sunset." "That served the farmer quite right," said Erik, indignantly, and the others agreed with him. The broad waters of Lake Mälar were alive with sailing craft and small steamers. Who would stay indoors on such a day! Along the wooded slopes of the lake they sailed past many a lovely villa, half-hidden by trees, and occasionally some ancient castle. "That is the place where I saw a water-sprite late one afternoon," said Sigrid. The breeze had died down and the boat seemed to rest at anchor near an old wooden bridge beneath which a hillside brook rushed joyously into the lake. "Did you really?" asked Elsa. Sigrid believed in trolls, sea-nymphs, fairies, and water-sprites. But Elsa was several years older than her cousin, and she wasn't at all certain that trolls and water-sprites still lived in the wild country, though they might have in the olden times.