"Well," said Caleb, "you've got your chance now. What are you going to do with it?" "I want to go out," said the spook, "I'm tired of this Church, and I've been alone for six hundred years. It's a long time." "It does seem rather a long time," said Caleb, "but why don't you go if you want to? There's three doors." "That's just it," said the spook, "They keep me in." "What?" said Caleb, "when they're open." "Open or shut," said the spook, "it's all one." "Well, then," said Caleb, "what about the windows?" "Every bit as bad," said the spook, "They're all pointed." Caleb felt out of his depth. Open doors and windows that kept a person in--if it was a person--seemed to want a little understanding. And the flimsier the person, too, the easier it ought to be for him to go where he wanted. Also, what could it matter whether they were pointed or not? The latter question was the one which Caleb asked first. "Six hundred years ago," said the spook, "all arches were made round, and when these pointed things came in I cursed them. I hate new-fangled things." "That wouldn't hurt them much," said Caleb. "I said I would never go under one of them," said the spook. "That would matter more to you than to them," said Caleb. "It does," said the spook, with another great sigh. "But you could easily change your mind," said Caleb. "I was tied to it," said the spook, "I was told that I never more should go under one of them, whether I would or not." "Some people will tell you anything," answered Caleb. "It was a Bishop," explained the spook. "Ah!" said Caleb, "that's different, of course." The spook told Caleb how often he had tried to go under the pointed arches, sometimes of the doors, sometimes of the windows, and how a stream of wind always struck him from the point of the arch, and drifted him back into the Church. He had long given up trying. "You should have been outside," said Caleb, "before they built the last door." "It was my Church," said the spook, "and I was too proud to leave." Caleb began to sympathise with the spook. He had a pride in the Church himself, and disliked even to hear another person say Amen before him. He also began to be a little jealous of this stranger who had been six hundred years in possession of the Church in which Caleb had believed himself, under the Vicar, to be master. And he began to plot. "Why do you want to get out?" he asked. "I'm no use here," was the reply, "I don't get enough to do to keep myself warm. And I know there are scores of Churches now without any kirk-spooks at all. I can hear their cheap little bells dinging every Sunday." "There's very few bells hereabouts," said Caleb. "There's no hereabouts for spooks," said the other. "We can hear any distance you like." "But what good are you at all?" said Caleb. "Good!" said the spook. "Don't we secure proper respect for Churches, especially after dark? A Church would be like any other place if it wasn't for us. You must know that."