This gallant little party met a cordial reception, and immediately entered with the greatest activity into the war of skirmishes and surprises which was then going on. The chief of the Camerons, the gallant Evan Dhu, hailed in Wogan a kindred spirit, and joined in some of his enterprises.[167] No garrison within many miles of the Highland frontier was secure from their inroads. Their united names became a terror to the English. But one winter month of Highland campaigning formed the entire career of Wogan. A lieutenant’s party of the veteran regiment known as the Brazen Wall, left the garrison at Drummond one day, to recover some sheep which had been carried away by the Highlanders. It became enclosed unawares in a superior force of the enemy, of which Wogan and his troop formed part. The Brazen Walls got off with a severe loss; but Wogan had received a wound in the shoulder from a tuck. It was such an affair as a good surgeon and a week of quiet might have healed—the circumstances of the poor youth made it mortal in a few days, to the great grief of all who knew him.[168] He was buried with military honours, and amidst the greatest demonstrations of Highland sorrow, in the churchyard of Kenmore[169] (about February 1, 1654). ‘Great indignation was there,’ says Heath, ‘against Robinson, the surgeon that dressed him, for his neglect of him, the Earl of Athole having threatened to kill him; so dearly was this hero beloved by that nation.’ The hope of this English author ‘that some grateful muse should sing his achievements,’ has not as yet been realised; but the readers of Waverley will remember how the author represents his hero as gloating over Flora M‘Ivor’s verses To an Oak-tree said to mark the Grave of Captain Wogan:
‘Emblem of England’s ancient faith,
Full proudly may thy branches wave,
Where loyalty lies low in death,
And valour fills a timeless grave.
Thy death-hour heard no kindred wail,
No holy knell thy requiem rung,
Thy mourners were the plaided Gael,
Thy dirge the clamorous pibroch sung.