Now it would have been better for the plans of Old Jed Thumper if he had kept them to himself instead of speaking aloud.  Two dainty little ears heard what he said, and two soft, gentle eyes watched him leave the bull-briar castle.  He started straight for the far corner of the Old Pasture where, although he didn’t know it, Peter Rabbit had found a warm little sunning-bank.  But he hadn’t gone far when, from way off in the opposite direction, he heard a sound that made him stop short and prick up his long ears to listen.  There it was again—­thump, thump!  He was just going to thump back an angry reply, when he thought better of it.

“If do that,” thought he, “I’ll only warn him, and he’ll run away, just as he has before.”

So instead, he turned and hurried in the direction from which the thumps had come, taking the greatest care to make no noise.  Every few jumps he would stop to listen.  Twice more he heard those thumps, and each time new rage filled his heart, and for a minute or two he chewed his temper.

“He’s down at my blueberry-patch,” he muttered.

At last he reached the blueberry-patch.  Very softly he crept to a place where he could see and not be seen.  No one was there.  No, Sir, no one was there!  He waited and watched, and there wasn’t a hair of Peter Rabbit to be seen.  He was just getting ready to go look for Peter’s tracks when he heard that thump, thump again.  This time it came from his favorite clover-patch where he never allowed even his favorite daughter, little Miss Fuzzytail, to go.  Anger nearly choked him as he hurried in that direction.  But when he got there, just as before no one was to be seen.

So, all the morning long, Old Jed Thumper hurried from one place to another and never once caught sight of Peter Rabbit.  Can you guess why?  Well, the reason was that all the time Peter was stretched out on his warm sunning-bank getting the rest he so much needed.  It was some one else who was fooling Old Jed Thumper.

CHAPTER XV

A PLEASANT SURPRISE FOR PETER

Sticks will break and sticks will bend,
And all things bad will have an end. 
Peter Rabbit.

All morning, while someone was fooling Old Jed Thumper, the cross old Rabbit who thought he owned the Old Pasture, Peter Rabbit lay stretched out on the warm little sunning-bank, dreaming of soft, gentle eyes and beautiful little footprints.  It was a dangerous place to go to sleep, because at any time fierce Mr. Goshawk might have come that way, and if he had, and had found Peter Rabbit asleep, why, that would have been the end of Peter and all the stories about him.

Peter did go to sleep.  You see, the sunning-bank was so warm and comfortable, and he was so tired and had had so little sleep for such a long time that, in spite of all he could do, he nodded and nodded and finally slipped off into dreamland.