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.