#hardcover#Davidsonjr (WB2) The destinies of two striking and different men are compellingly linked in this novel of Pilgrim New England. The real but little-known story of these settlements provides the drama for a vigorous and totally absorbing tale. One of the adventurers is libertine Thomas Morton, whose antics, recorded in the early pages of America's history, scandalized his age. The other is young David Ratcliffe, an indentured apprentice who faces a bleak future in the New World until he is befriended by Morton. Not far from the Plymouth colony, the irrepressible Morton establishes Merry Mount, where he encourages his settlers to defy the Puritans' austere ways and to carouse and frolic to their hearts' content. But Morton has other plans for "Ratty," as he dubs the fifteen-year-old David, and he undertakes to educate the boy and bet- ter his station in life. Although David thrives in his new en- vironment, the carefree days of Morton's settlement are numbered. Merry Mount's easygoing ways bring upon it the wrath of Plymouth, and Morton and David- over many bottles of wine- screw up their courage for a fight with Captain Miles Standish.