The modern ballad on a similar subject used by Percy was ‘The Drunkard’s Legacy,’[20] an inexpressibly pitiable ditty, from which Percy did not and could not take a line, but only, as he says, a suggestion for the improvement of the story. In this, a gentleman has a thriftless son given over to gaming and drunkenness. The father, foreseeing his ruin, builds a cottage on a waste plat of land, with one door, fastened by a spring-lock. On his death-bed he sends for his son, tells him of the cottage, and directs him, after he has lost all his friends and pawned his lands, to break open the door, for he shall find something within to end his troubles. After the father’s death the son spent all his ready money, and then pawned his lands to the keeper of a tavern which he had frequented, who, in the end, kicked him out of doors. Recalling now his father’s injunction, the son broke open the cottage, hoping to find money. He saw only ‘a gibbet and a rope,’ and a stool under the rope. He mounted the stool, put the rope round his neck, and jumped off. The ‘gibbet’ broke, and a thousand pound in gold came tumbling about his ears. The young man, with a blessing on his father, vowed to give up drinking. He went to the vintner’s, and getting a rough reception, complained of his so treating a man who had pawned to him for three hundred pounds lands bringing in eight score pounds’ rent, and besides had spent the money in that shop. The vintner told him to bring a hundred pounds the next day and take the lands back. The young man asked a note to this effect, which was unsuspectingly given. He then went and fetched the money, bringing with him a comrade, ‘who had made him drink when moneyless.’ The vintner declared that he had spoken in jest, but ‘this young man’s friend’ urged that the written agreement would ‘cast’ him in law; so the vintner had to take the hundred pounds and give up the deeds, and he cut his throat for mortification. From that time the prodigal lived a sober, charitable life. Percy’s introduction of the lonesome lodge, the hanging, the bursting ceiling, and the father’s double admonition, is an improvement too striking to require or bear much comment. It is very far from certain that a young reprobate, who has spent everything in riotous living, will be turned into better courses by simply coming upon more money, as in the traditional ballad; whereas there is a very fair chance that the moral shock received in the other might be efficacious. There are several Oriental stories which closely resemble that of ‘The Drunkard’s Legacy,’ or of Percy’s ‘Heir of Linne.’