save by a square hole in the third storey, with which they seem to have communicated by a ladder. The access to the upper apartments in the tower, which consist in all of four stories, is given by stairs which are carried up through the external buttresses.
By this difficult and complicated entrance the good King Richard, followed by his faithful Ivanhoe, was ushered into the round apartment which occupies the whole of the third storey from the ground. The latter had time to muffle his face in his mantle, as it had been held expedient that he should not present himself to his father until the King should give him the signal.
There were assembled in this apartment, around a large oaken table, about a dozen of the most distinguished representatives of the Saxon families in the adjacent counties. These were all old, or, at least, elderly men; for the younger race, to the great displeasure of the seniors, had, like Ivanhoe, broken down many of the barriers which had separated for half a century the Norman victors from the vanquished Saxons. The downcast and sorrowful looks of these venerable
