She set her lips and nodded her head.
"Knock awa'," she whispered.
The knock was repeated louder now.
"Knock awa' till doomsday," she called out in a angry voice. "I'll not let ye in!"
The knock was not repeated, and footsteps outside were heard going away.
The old woman nodded her head and smiled.
"They won't trouble me for a bit," she assured herself.
But she did not smile the next day when she was told that her Queen had stood outside her door, and knocked for admission, and she had refused to let her in.
The Queen never visited her again.
There was a poor man in Liverpool who could not pay his rent. He lived in a little house by himself, and was in great trouble lest his landlord should turn him out. One day he heard a knock at his door, and thinking it was his landlord, he locked the door and slipped out into his back garden, hoping people would think he was out.