← Their most faithful disciples were the two cart−horses, Boxer and Clover. These two had great difficulty in thinking anything out for themselves, but having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other animals by simple arguments. 🔊
← "It isn't true!" repeated Mollie, but she could not look Clover in the face, and the next moment she took to her heels and galloped away into the field. 🔊
← A thought struck Clover. Without saying anything to the others, she went to Mollie's stall and turned over the straw with her hoof. 🔊
← Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must have done so. 🔊
← As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race. 🔊
← The animals slain in the battle were given a solemn funeral. Boxer and Clover pulled the wagon which served as a hearse, and Napoleon himself walked at the head of the procession. 🔊
← In the evenings he would admit privately to Clover that the hoof troubled him a great deal. 🔊
← Boxer and Clover always carried between them a green banner marked with the hoof and the horn and the caption, "Long live Comrade Napoleon! " 🔊
← He even claimed to have been there on one of his higher flights, and to have seen the everlasting fields of clover and the linseed cake and lump sugar growing on the hedges. 🔊
← Clover dropped to her knees at his side. "Boxer!" she cried, "how are you?" "It is my lung," said Boxer in a weak voice. 🔊
← And about half an hour later, when Boxer had somewhat recovered, he was with difficulty got on to his feet, and managed to limp back to his stall, where Clover and Benjamin had prepared a good bed of straw for him. 🔊
← However, Benjamin and Clover could only be with Boxer after working hours, and it was in the middle of the day when the van came to take him away. 🔊
← All the animals followed, crying out at the tops of their voices. Clover forced her way to the front. 🔊
← "Boxer!" cried Clover in a terrible voice. "Boxer! Get out! Get out quickly! They're taking you to your death!" 🔊
← It was uncertain whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said. But a moment later his face disappeared from the window and there was the sound of a tremendous drumming of hoofs inside the van. 🔊
← YEARS passed. The seasons came and went, the short animal lives fled by. A time came when there was no one who remembered the old days before the Rebellion, except Clover, Benjamin, Moses the raven, and a number of the pigs. 🔊
← Startled, the animals stopped in their tracks. It was Clover's voice. She neighed again, and all the animals broke into a gallop and rushed into the yard. 🔊
← Then they saw what Clover had seen. It was a pig walking on his hind legs. 🔊
← At the gate they paused, half frightened to go on but Clover led the way in. 🔊
← What was it that had altered in the faces of the pigs? Clover's old dim eyes flitted from one face to another. 🔊