← In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on evil days. 🔊
← "Comrades," said Snowball, "it is half−past six and we have a long day before us. 🔊
← The pigs now revealed that during the past three months they had taught themselves to read and write from an old spelling book which had belonged to Mr. Jones's children and which had been thrown on the rubbish heap. 🔊
← They explained that by their studies of the past three months the pigs had succeeded in reducing the principles of Animalism to Seven Commandments. 🔊
← But at this moment the three cows, who had seemed uneasy for some time past, set up a loud lowing. 🔊
← Even when it was resolved−a thing no one could object to in itself−to set aside the small paddock behind the orchard as a home of rest for animals who were past work, there was a stormy debate over the correct retiring age for each class of animal. 🔊
← After the hoisting of the flag, the animals were required to file past the skull in a reverent manner before entering the barn. 🔊
← Nowadays they did not sit all together as they had done in the past. Napoleon, with Squealer and another pig named Minimus, who had a remarkable gift for composing songs and poems, sat on the front of the raised platform, with the nine young dogs forming a semicircle round them, and the other pigs sitting behind. 🔊
← The plans, however, had all been prepared, down to the last detail. A special committee of pigs had been at work upon them for the past three weeks. 🔊
← They added that Snowball had privately admitted to them that he had been Jones's secret agent for years past. 🔊
← All these rumours had probably originated with Snowball and his agents. It now appeared that Snowball was not, after all, hiding on Pinchfield Farm, and in fact had never been there in his life: he was living−in considerable luxury, so it was said−at Foxwood, and had in reality been a pensioner of Pilkington for years past. 🔊
← The animals filed slowly past, and each gazed his fill. And Boxer put out his nose to sniff at the bank−notes, and the flimsy white things stirred and rustled in his breath. 🔊
← At about half past nine Napoleon, wearing an old bowler hat of Mr. Jones's, was distinctly seen to emerge from the back door, gallop rapidly round the yard, and disappear indoors again. 🔊
← A week later Napoleon gave orders that the small paddock beyond the orchard, which it had previously been intended to set aside as a grazing−ground for animals who were past work, was to be ploughed up. 🔊
← She was two years past the retiring age, but in fact no animal had ever actually retired. 🔊
← Nothing could be further from the truth! Their sole wish, now and in the past, was to live at peace and in normal business relations with their neighbours. 🔊
← This was to be suppressed. There had also been a very strange custom, whose origin was unknown, of marching every Sunday morning past a boar's skull which was nailed to a post in the garden. 🔊