Everyone present, like Els, was familiar with this story, which wrongly cast so evil a light upon the uprightness of the citizens of Nuremberg.  Who could fail to be painfully affected by the thought that Rudolph, during his present stay amongst them, must witness the injury of others by a Nuremberg merchant?  Who could have now opposed Herr Berthold, when he asked, still more earnestly than before, that the community would do its share to maintain confidence in the reliability of the Nuremberg citizens, and especially of the Honourable Council and everyone of its members?

But when he mentioned the large sum which he himself, and the other which Ernst Ortlieb intended on certain conditions to devote to the settlement of this affair, Peter Ammon also withdrew his opposition.  The First Losunger’s proposal was unanimously accepted, and also the condition made by his associate, Ernst Ortlieb.  Casper Eysvogel, on whom the resolution bore most heavily, submitted in silence, shrugging his shoulders.

How high Els’s heart throbbed, how she longed to rush down into the Council chamber and clasp the hand of the noble old man at the green table, when he said that in consequence of Ernst Ortlieb’s condition—­ which he also made—­the charge of the newly established Eysvogel business must be transferred from Herr Casper’s hands to those of his son, Herr Wolff, as soon as the imperial pardon permitted him to leave his hiding-place.  He, Berthold Vorchtel, would make no complaint against him, for he knew that Wolff had been forced to cross swords with his Ulrich.  He had formed this resolution after a severe struggle with himself; but as a Christian and a fair-minded man he had renounced the human desire for revenge, and as God had wished to give him a token of his approval, he had sent to his house a substitute for his dead son.  Fresh cries of approval interrupted this communication, whose meaning Els did not understand.

Not a word of remonstrance was uttered when the imperial magistrate at last proposed that Casper Eysvogel and the women of his family should leave the city and atone for his great offence by ten years in exile.  One of his estates, which he advised the city to buy, could be assigned him as a residence.  Herr Casper’s daughter, Frau Isabella Siebenburg, had already, with her twin sons, found shelter at the Knight Heideck’s castle.  Her husband, who had joined his guilty brothers, would speedily fall into the hands of justice and reap what he had sowed.  For the final settlement of this affair he begged the Honourable Council to appoint commissioners, whom he would willingly join.

Then Herr Vorchtel again rose and requested his honourable friends to treat the new head of the house with entire confidence; for from the books of the firm and the statements which he had made in his hiding-place and sent to the Council, both he and the city clerk had become convinced that he was one of the most cautious and upright young merchants in Nuremberg.  Their opinion was also shared by the most prominent business acquaintances of the house.