Veggie Fable: The Man Who Cried “Meat!”

Once upon a time, a young woman rode her glossy and high-spirited brown horse into a small village, some three miles from the great highway which ran from one end of the country to the other. Tired and dust-coated from days of travelling, she sought out a comfortable inn. The proprietors of the establishment were a kindly and competent couple, well used to receiving guests from many and distant lands. They took her order for supper and sent off the cook to prepare a dish to her requirements. She seemed a woman of slightly unusual tastes, turning down the chance to sample their renowned chicken pie, but they took no offence, and assured her that their cook was more than equal to the task of providing her with a sustaining and cheering meal. Pleased at the prospect of a good hot supper, the woman went out to make sure that her horse was being fed and watered, and that he had a comfortable stable for the night. All was satisfactory, as the stable hand was as pleasant-natured and as good at his job as were the inn’s owners, and the woman spent ten minutes chatting in a friendly way with him of horses known and ridden, of their habits and their virtues, before returning to the cosy dining room for her meal.
    Awaiting her was a steaming plate of bean stew, with fresh-baked crusty bread, and warm-spiced ale. The woman set to work on this appealing fare with a good will, nodding an acknowledgement to the other diners, but preferring not to enter into conversation. The majority of customers respected her wish for quiet relaxation as she enjoyed the much-needed nourishment. One man, however, could not restrain himself. He was a fairly tall man, and bulky, though his mass was of the inert, dead-weight kind. His breath was none of the freshest as he loomed over the woman.
    “What’s that muck you’re eating?” he asked, though without a real interest in the answer, “Can’t you afford the chicken pie then love?”
    The woman wished that she could ignore him, but she could see from the glint in his puffy eyes and the aggressive curl of his greasy mouth that he would take that as great provocation. She kept her answer short and factual: she was eating bean stew, which she preferred to chicken pie. She chose not to eat the flesh of animals.
    She had known, really, that the man would not be satisfied with that. She turned back to her plate, but felt the force of anger building in her interrogator. He was so annoyed at the thought of her stance that he did not notice a stream of gravy-tinged spittle escaping the side of his mouth and down his chin. He proceeded to go through the remarks she had heard time and again, as if he were the first to say that she was foolish, that animals were made for the enjoyment of man, and were of no account, that she cared more for animals than people, that she was unnatural. She had heard it all so many tedious times, and waited for his viscous flow to clot. At last, he came to the one-sided argument that meat was what made him strong. “Show me,” he near-bellowed, “a white-blooded bean-muncher who can match muscle with the likes of me!”
    The man looked around the room, pleased to have ended with such a virile challenge, and not at all expecting that there would be any response to it.
    “Very well, sir,” said the woman, with studied calm, and rose from the table, indicating that he should follow her. Taken aback, he could not summon a reason not to go, and after him, into the street, poured all of the other diners, and the innkeepers.
    The woman stood, relaxed, as the man positioned himself opposite him and arranged his limbs into a fighting stance. She had asked for it, he thought. He was not going to go easy on this uppity tart. He awaited her move, but she made no attack. Instead, she gave a shrill two-fingered whistle. Before the man knew what was going on, there was the crashing of a door, a drumming of hooves, and a fine, brown and glossy horse had interposed itself between him and the woman. The horse, seemingly of its own initiative, turned its tail to him, and administered such a kick as sent him flying into the muck-heap. The woman gave a different whistled signal, and the horse immediately returned to the stable. She strode back in to finish her meal, and, as she passed the man, she spoke softly but with assurance, “My white-blooded bean munching friend and I beg to differ”.
    The man did not, somehow, feel like returning to the inn with the crowd. He swore and stalked off home to demand a hot bath and no back chat. by the time he reached his door, he had found consolation in the fact that he could still look down on her as a bloody woman, and an ignorant townie to boot.