And you, lead on!”
At this juncture the chorus of Acharnian men rush in, with the bosoms of their gowns full of stones, indignant at the thought of peace when their vines have been cut by the enemy. They are a sturdy lot. They had contributed a Highland regiment at Marathon; they are regular “old Hickories,” “hardwood-charcoal men, tough as oak, hard-maple men,” and they are ready to stone Dicæopolis. He gains time, however, for a parley by seizing for a hostage a basket of their charcoals and dressing it up as a baby.
MENANDER
Menander, also, in his recently discovered “Arbitration” scene, gives details of an encounter between a shepherd and a charcoal man somewhere in this Acharnæ district, evidently in the public “clearings” lying between the farm-lands and the undisturbed forests. The shepherd Daos tells a well-to-do property owner, who happens by and is selected to arbitrate the dispute, how,—
“Within this bushy thicket here, hard by this place,
My flock I was a-herding, now, perhaps, good sir,
Some thirty days gone by, and I was all alone,
When I came on a little infant child exposed
With necklaces and some such other trumpery.”