Once there was a company of gypsies that came to a country fellow
on the highway, and would needs tell him his fortune: amongst other
things, they bad him assure himself 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 look'd in 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 tho' he had never a
penny in his purse; and because it was winter-time, he sat a while by
the fire-side, and after went to bed supperless and pennyless.