← First came the hoisting of the flag. Snowball had found in the harness−room an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones's and had painted on it a hoof and a horn in white. 🔊
← This was run up the flagstaff in the farmhouse garden every Sunday morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England, while the hoof and horn signified the future Republic of the Animals which would arise when the human race had been finally overthrown. 🔊
← Most of Animal Farm was within their view−the long pasture stretching down to the main road, the hayfield, the spinney, the drinking pool, the ploughed fields where the young wheat was thick and green, and the red roofs of the farm buildings with the smoke curling from the chimneys. 🔊
← But when the animals saw the green flag flying, and heard the gun firing again−seven times it was fired in all−and heard the speech that Napoleon made, congratulating them on their conduct, it did seem to them after all that they had won a great victory. 🔊
← It was announced that the battle would be called the Battle of the Windmill, and that Napoleon had created a new decoration, the Order of the Green Banner, which he had conferred upon himself. 🔊
← About this time, too, it was laid down as a rule that when a pig and any other animal met on the path, the other animal must stand aside: and also that all pigs, of whatever degree, were to have the privilege of wearing green ribbons on their tails on Sundays. 🔊
← Boxer and Clover always carried between them a green banner marked with the hoof and the horn and the caption, "Long live Comrade Napoleon! " 🔊
← And when they heard the gun booming and saw the green flag fluttering at the masthead, their hearts swelled with imperishable pride, and the talk turned always towards the old heroic days, the expulsion of Jones, the writing of the Seven Commandments, the great battles in which the human invaders had been defeated. 🔊
← None of the old dreams had been abandoned. The Republic of the Animals which Major had foretold, when the green fields of England should be untrodden by human feet, was still believed in. 🔊
← This, too, would be suppressed, and the skull had already been buried. His visitors might have observed, too, the green flag which flew from the masthead. 🔊
← It would be a plain green flag from now onwards. He had only one criticism, he said, to make of Mr. Pilkington's excellent and neighbourly speech. 🔊