About twelve o’clock that night the weather became very stormy.  A sudden gale set in, and in a very short time the sea became lashed into a fury.  I have never heard wind like the wind that night.  It literally shrieked and moaned as it blew, and every window and door in the house rattled, and sometimes I felt as if the cottage itself would be swept away.

‘What a time they must be having out at sea!’ I said to myself.

I went to the window, and putting out my candle, I tried to see out into the darkness; but I could distinguish nothing whatever, so black was the sky and so tremendous was the rain.

It must have been about one o’clock that I heard a step on the stairs.  I opened my door and went out.  It was Polly.

‘How is he, Polly?’ I asked.

‘Very bad, sir; very bad,’ she said.  ’He doesn’t know me now, and he won’t take anything; and oh, sir, do you hear the wind?’

Who could help hearing it?  It was raging more furiously every moment, and the house seemed to rock with the violence of the storm.

‘Let me help you, Polly,’ I said; ’let me come and sit with you beside little John.’

’Well, sir, if you would just stay a few minutes whilst I fetch Betty Green,’ she said; ’I feel as if I dursn’t be alone any longer, I’m getting that nervous, what with little John talking so queer, sir, and the wind blowing so awful, and his father on the sea!’ and Polly burst into tears.

‘Polly,’ I said, ’God is on the sea as well as on the land.  Go and fetch Betty, and I will sit by the child.’

She went down and opened the door, and the wind rushed into the house and up the stairs, and I had to shut the bedroom door hastily to keep it out.  Then I heard Polly pulling and pulling at it, and vainly trying to shut it, and I had to go down to help her.  She was some minutes away, for she had difficulty in rousing her neighbour, and I sat beside the unconscious child.  He was talking the whole time, but I could distinguish very little of what he said.  It seemed to be chiefly about going with his daddy in his boat, and every now and then he would call out quite loudly, ‘Come, daddy, come, daddy, to little John.’

When Polly returned with old Betty, I had again to go down to help them to close the door.

‘What do you think of him, sir?’ said Polly.

I did not like to say what I thought, so I answered, ’Well, perhaps it would be as well to get the doctor to have another look at him.  I’ll go for him if you like.’

‘I don’t believe you could manage it, sir,’ said Betty.  ’You can’t stand outside; me and Polly has been clinging on to the palings all the way, and it will be terrible up on the top.’

‘Shall I try, Polly?’

She gave me a grateful look, but did not answer by words.  But the two women gave me so long a description of the way to the doctor’s house, and interrupted each other so often, and at length both talked together in their eagerness to make it clear to me, that at the end I was more bewildered and hopelessly puzzled than at the beginning, and I determined to go to Mr. Christie before I started, in order to obtain from him full and clear directions.