The family already numbered two sons and a daughter when in 1843 Mrs. Gatacre went on a visit to her widowed mother, who was then living at Herbertshire Castle, near Stirling: and so it came about that when a little boy was born on December 3, he was given the names of his uncle and godfather, William Forbes.
Perhaps it is to his Scottish descent that we may trace some of the qualities that became most marked when the child, grown to perfect manhood, had evolved that balance of innumerable strains that go to make the individual—had, as it were, tuned the manifold strings of his lineage to a chord of his own finding. Did he draw his habit of concentration on the matter in hand, his painstaking attention to detail, from the inventor-engineer of Aberdeen? Did he draw his fervent notions of duty and his stern disregard of personal considerations from the blood of the Covenanters that ran in his veins? My own father was heard to say that this son-in-law of his was born out of due time, that his right place would have been at the head of Cromwell's Ironsides.
In course of time another son, Stephen, completed the family. The children were a great source of pride and pleasure to their parents, and had the benefit of all that loving early training could do for them. In this wholesome atmosphere of parental affection and brotherly competition the four boys grew up straight and strong. They vied with one another in childish feats and manly sports, but in all these Willie was the keenest and the most daring.
Even in these latter days the house at Gatacre seems difficult of access, for the nearest railway station (unless you cross the Severn in a ferry) is at Bridgnorth, six miles away; but sixty years ago there was no railway nearer than Wolverhampton, a good ten miles' drive. The eldest son well remembers his father driving his coach-and-four to and fro. The Squire was a famous whip, and maintained this practice far into the sixties. But as the boys grew older they thought nothing of doing this journey on foot at any hour of the day or night; perhaps it was the remoteness of the country in which they were nurtured that had endowed this family for generations back with powers of physical endurance and enterprise beyond the common.
At school
The elder brothers Edward and John[[10]] were sent to Mr. Hopkirk's school at Eltham, in Kent; and both were still there when Willie joined them a year or two later. Some of Willie's letters from school are still to be seen; and if handwriting is any sign of character, he must have been an exemplary boy at his lessons, for his letters are so exquisitely written that were it not for the dates duly recorded one could scarcely believe them to be the work of a high-spirited boy of thirteen. Writing to his mother in March 1857, he says: "Did you see in the papers that peace had been made with Persia?"
[[10]] Now Major-General Sir John Gatacre, K.C.B.
The interest in Persia had been aroused by the approaching departure of his brother John to India, where he was to join a regiment that was at that moment fighting in Persia. Though loth to part from one who was said to be his father's favourite son, the Squire had thought the offer of a commission in the East India Company's army too good an opening to refuse. In May 1857 he accompanied the boy, who was then only sixteen and a half, as far as Marseilles, and did not see him again for nearly twelve years.
At Gatacre there was a famous kennel of setters, and also some good retrievers. A puppy of the latter breed was given to Willie for his own, and he broke and trained it so skilfully, when only fifteen, that the dog was sold for fifteen guineas, and eventually became celebrated in the canine world.