firm; he knows that his heart is strong and his tread sure.  He does not look down where the earth holds out her green arms luringly, he does not look up where from the procession of clouds in the sky the fatal giddiness may drop down on his steady eye.  The centre of the rungs is the pathway of his glance, and he stands on top.  No heaven exists for him, no earth, nothing but the broach-post and the ladder which he ties together with his rope.  The knot is made; the spectators breathe with relief and give utterance in all the streets to their admiration for the daring man and his doings high up between heaven and earth.  For a week the children of the town play at being slaters.

But now the daring man begins his work indeed.  He fetches up another rope and lays it as a rotary ring round the post below the pommel of the steeple.  To this he fastens his tackle with three blocks, to the tackle the rings of his hanging seat.  A board to sit on with two places cut out to allow his legs to hang down, and with a low, curved back, on either side boxes for slates, nails and tools; in front, between the places for his legs, a little anvil on which he hammers the slate to the shape he wants it with his slater’s hammer; this apparatus, held by four strong cables which unite above to form two rings for the hooks of the tackle, is the hanging-seat as he calls it, the light craft in which he sails round the roof of the steeple high in the air.  By means of the tackle he easily pulls himself up or lets himself down as high or as low as he likes; the ring above turns round the steeple with the tackle and hanging-seat in whichever direction he desires.  A gentle kick against the roof sets the whole in motion, for him to stop where he pleases.  Soon no one stands below any longer looking up; the slater at work is no longer any novelty.  The children turn again to their old games.  The jackdaws grow accustomed to him; they regard him as a bird, like themselves, only bigger, but peaceful, as they are; and the clouds in the sky have never troubled themselves about him from the beginning.  The ladies envy him his view.  Who can look out so freely across the green plain and see how mountains range themselves behind mountains, first green, then growing bluer and bluer to where the sky, even bluer than they, rests on the last ones!  But he troubles himself as little about the mountains as the clouds trouble themselves about him.  Day after day he works on with iron and claw-hammer, day after day he hammers slates and drives in nails, till he is done with hammering and nailing.  One day man, tackle, ladder and scaffolding have disappeared.  The removal of the ladder is just as dangerous as its setting up; but no one below folds his hands, no mouth extols the achievement of the man between heaven and earth.  The crows wonder for a whole week and then it seems to them as if years ago they had dreamt of some odd bird.  Far below the tumult of the wanderers of the earth still sounds, high above the wanderers of the sky, the silent clouds still continue in their vast course, but no one flies around the steep roof save the cawing swarm of jackdaws.