In which Philip, burdened by a crushing anguish and haunted by his altered fortunes, encounters villagers' news of Kinraid’s rising renown and finds himself a stranger in his own home, compelled by despair to seek solace in the wild and lonely moorlands. There, chance meeting with a recruiting sergeant leads him into a new path under a borrowed name, marking the beginning of a future as uncertain as the bleak fells he wanders.