Between heaven and earth lies the slater’s realm.  Far below is the noisy tumult of the wanderers of the earth, high above are the wanderers of the sky, the silent clouds in their vast course.  For months, years, decades, this realm has no inhabitants but the restlessly fluttering race of cawing jackdaws.  But one day the narrow door halfway up the tower-roof is opened; invisible hands push two scaffolding timbers out, part way into space.  To the spectator below it looks as if they wanted to build a bridge of straws into the sky.  The jackdaws have fled to the pommel of the steeple and to the weather-vane and look down from there, ruffling their feathers with fear.  The timbers stand out only a few feet from the door and the invisible hands cease pushing.  Then a hammering begins in the heart of the tower-loft.  The sleeping owls start up and tumble staggeringly out of their scuttles into the open eye of the day.  The jackdaws hear it with horror; the child of man below on the firm earth does not catch the sound, the clouds above on the sky pass over it untroubled.  The pounding continues a long time; then it ceases and two or three short boards follow the timbers and are laid across them.  Behind them appear a man’s head and a pair of vigorous arms.  One hand holds the nail, the other swings the hammer that strikes it until the boards are firmly nailed down.  The “flying” scaffold is ready.  Thus the builder calls it, for whom it may become a bridge to heaven, without his desiring it.  Then from the scaffold the ladder is built and, if the tower roof is very high, ladder upon ladder.  Nothing holds it together but iron hooks, nothing holds it firm but two pairs of hands on the scaffold and, at the top, the broach-post against which it leans.  Once it is tied fast to the broach-post and at the bottom, the slater no longer sees any danger in mounting it, however anxious the dizzy man may feel down on the firm earth when he looks up and thinks the ladder made of match-wood glued together, like a child’s Christmas toy.  But before he has bound the ladder fast—­and in order to do that he must climb it once—­the slater may commend his poor soul to God.  Then he is indeed between heaven and earth.  He knows that the slightest shift of the ladder—­and a single false step may shift it—­will dash him helplessly down to certain death.  Stop the clang of the bells beneath him, it may startle him!  The spectators far below on the earth involuntarily clasp their hands breathlessly; the jackdaws, who have been driven from their last place of refuge by the ascending figure, caw as they flutter wildly round his head; only the clouds in the sky pursue their way above him, untouched.  Only the clouds?  No.  The daring man on the ladder goes on as calmly as they.  He is no vain dare-devil wantonly bent on making himself talked of; he goes his dangerous way in the course of his calling.  He knows that the ladder is firm; he himself has built the scaffold, he knows that it is