← Several nights a week, after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and expounded the principles of Animalism to the others. 🔊
← She had taken a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs. Jones's dressing−table, and was holding it against her shoulder and admiring herself in the glass in a very foolish manner. 🔊
← With some difficulty (for it is not easy for a pig to balance himself on a ladder) Snowball climbed up and set to work, with Squealer a few rungs below him holding the paint−pot. 🔊
← An impromptu celebration of the victory was held immediately. The flag was run up and Beasts of England was sung a number of times, then the sheep who had been killed was given a solemn funeral, a hawthorn bush being planted on her grave. 🔊
← The earth was like iron, and nothing could be done in the fields. Many meetings were held in the big barn, and the pigs occupied themselves with planning out the work of the coming season. 🔊
← He was closeted there for hours at a time. With his books held open by a stone, and with a piece of chalk gripped between the knuckles of his trotter, he would move rapidly to and fro, drawing in line after line and uttering little whimpers of excitement. 🔊
← Only Napoleon held aloof. He had declared himself against the windmill from the start. One day, however, he arrived unexpectedly to examine the plans. 🔊
← Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?" Once again this argument was unanswerable. Certainly the animals did not want Jones back; if the holding of debates on Sunday mornings was liable to bring him back, then the debates must stop. 🔊
← The animals lashed ropes round these, and then all together, cows, horses, sheep, any animal that could lay hold of the rope−even the pigs sometimes joined in at critical moments−they dragged them with desperate slowness up the slope to the top of the quarry, where they were toppled over the edge, to shatter to pieces below. 🔊
← Every human being held it as an article of faith that the farm would go bankrupt sooner or later, and, above all, that the windmill would be a failure. 🔊
← The dogs saw to it that these orders were carried out. For five days the hens held out, then they capitulated and went back to their nesting boxes. 🔊
← On Sunday mornings Squealer, holding down a long strip of paper with his trotter, would read out to them lists of figures proving that the production of every class of foodstuff had increased by two hundred per cent, three hundred per cent, or five hundred per cent, as the case might be. 🔊
← The pile of timber was still unsold. Of the two, Frederick was the more anxious to get hold of it, but he would not offer a reasonable price. 🔊
← Frederick, it was said, intended to bring against them twenty men all armed with guns, and he had already bribed the magistrates and police, so that if he could once get hold of the title−deeds of Animal Farm they would ask no questions. 🔊
← Meanwhile the timber was being carted away at high speed. When it was all gone, another special meeting was held in the barn for the animals to inspect Frederick's bank−notes. 🔊
← There were more songs, more speeches, more processions. Napoleon had commanded that once a week there should be held something called a Spontaneous Demonstration, the object of which was to celebrate the struggles and triumphs of Animal Farm. 🔊
← And in a few days' time the pigs intended to hold a memorial banquet in Boxer's honour. 🔊