a soothing
influence upon his listeners.

Els, with a throbbing heart, felt that nothing which this man advocated
could be wrong, and that whatever he recommended would be sure of
acceptance; for he stood amongst his young and elderly fellow directors
of the Nuremberg republic like an immovably steadfast guardian of duty
and law, who had grown grey in the atmosphere of honesty and honour.
Thus she had imagined the faithful Eckart, thus her own Wolff might look
some day when age had bleached his hair and labour and anxiety had lined
his lofty brow with wrinkles; Berthold Vorchtel, and other "Honourables"
who resembled him; grey-haired Conrad Gross; tall, broad-shouldered
Friedrich Holzschuher, whose long, snow-white hair fell in thick waves
to his shoulders; Ulrich Haller, in whose locks threads of silver
were just appearing, princely in form and bearing; stately Hermann
Waldstromer, who had the keen eyes of a huntsman; the noble Ebner
brothers, who would have attracted attention even in an assembly of
knights and counts--nay, the Emperor Rudolph was probably thinking of
the men below when he said that the Nuremberg Council reminded him of
a German oak wood, where firm reliance could be placed on every noble
trunk.

Herr Berthold Vorchtel was just such a noble, reliable tree. Els told
herself so, and though she knew how deeply he was wounded when Wolff
preferred her to his daughter Ursula, and how sorely he mourned his son
Ulrich's death, she was nevertheless convinced that this man would bear
the Eysvogels no grudge for the grief suffered through them, for no word
which was not just and estimable would cross his aged lips.

She was not mistaken; for after Herr Berthold had insisted upon his
right to raise his voice, not in behalf of Herr Casper but for his
business firm and its preservation, he remarked, by way of introduction,
that for the sake of Nuremberg he would advise that the Eysvogel house
should not be abandoned without ceremony to the storm which its chief
had aroused against the ancient, solid structure.

Then he turned to the papers and parchments, to which the city clerk had
just added several books and rolls. His address, frequently interrupted
by references to the documents before him, sounded clear and positive.
The amount of the sums owed by the Eysvogel firm, as well as the names
of its creditors in Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, and Regensburg, Venice,
Milan, Bruges, and other German and foreign citie