After several months of desultory
warfare, in which Wogan's skill and courage gained him the highest
reputation, he had the misfortune to be wounded in a dangerous manner,
and no surgical assistance being within reach he terminated his short but
glorious career.
There were obvious reasons why the politic Chieftain was desirous to
place the example of this young hero under the eye of Waverley, with
whose romantic disposition it coincided so peculiarly. But his letter
turned chiefly upon some trifling commissions which Waverley had promised
to execute for him in England, and it was only toward the conclusion that
Edward found these words: 'I owe Flora a grudge for refusing us her
company yesterday; and, as I am giving you the trouble of reading these
lines, in order to keep in your memory your promise to procure me the
fishing-tackle and cross-bow from London, I will enclose her verses on
the Grave of Wogan. This I know will tease her; for, to tell you the
truth, I think her more in love with the memory of that dead hero than
she is likely to be with any living one, unless he shall tread a similar
path. But English squires of our day keep their oak-trees to shelter
their deer parks, or repair the losses of an evening at White's, and
neither invoke them to wreathe their brows nor shelter their graves.
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