Once there was a company of gypsies that came to a country fellow on the highway, and would needs tell Tom his fortune. Amongst other things, they bade him assure himself that his worst misfortunes were past, and that he would not be troubled with crosses as he had been. So coming home, and having sold the cow at the market, he looked into his purse for the money, thinking to have told it to his wife; but he found not so much as one cross in his purse; whereupon he remembered the words of the gypsies, and said that the gypsies had said true that he should not be troubled with crosses, and that they had picked his pocket, and left not a penny in his purse. Whereupon his wife basted and cudgelled him so soundly, that he began to perceive that a man that had a cursed wife should never be without a cross, though he had never a penny in his purse; and because it was winter-time, he sat a while by the fireside, and after went to bed supperless and penniless. TALE IV. A farmer's wife in the west had three pigs, which she loved exceedingly well, and fed them with good butter milk and whey; but they would come running into the house and dirtied the rooms. Whereupon she resolved to sell them at the market, because they were better fed than taught, but afterwards they were stolen away from her; whereupon she supposed they were driven up to London to learn manners; "But," said she, "they were too old to learn to turn the spit in Bartholemew fair," and therefore believed some butchers had stolen them away. Her cock had a piece of cloth sewn about him, and was left upon the porch, but afterwards stolen; whereupon she said, that her cock was turned scholar in a black gown, and so she went to Oxford to a conjurer, to know what was become of her pigs and her cock. The scholar smiled, and told her the three pigs were blown home, and the cock was made a bachelor of arts in one of the colleges. "I thought so," said the woman, "for sure bachelors of arts are very coxcombs." * * * * * A YORK DIALOGUE BETWEEN NED AND HARRY: OR Ned giving Harry an Account of his Courtship and Marriage State. _Ned._--Honest Harry, I am glad to see you. You're welcome to York. You're a great stranger. When came you to town? _Harry._--I came to your town last night, Ned, and am glad to see you. I inquired after you of my landlord, and he told me you was well, and had been married two or three years. I wish you much happiness; but how d'ye like matrimony? _Ned._--In good faith, Harry, scrubbing his shoulders, but so, so; however, I will not discourage you. _Harry._--But don't you remember, Ned, that you and I made an agreement that which of us two was married first, should tell one another of the way of courtship, and how he liked it and a married state.