In the holidays
There are many excellent fox-holding coverts in that part of the country; the Albrighton Hounds still draw them regularly. Such visits were great events to the boys; and we can well believe that Willie would always be out, mounted on whatever he could get, big or small, old or young. One day he was riding a mare who was known to be twenty-two years old, and had all her life been used for harness work; but nothing stopped Willie. When a fox was found close to the house, away he went, and it is still told how Rushlight led the field for miles. Willie seems to have shared more intimately than any of his brothers the Squire's love for horses. He had a vivid recollection of journeys to Birmingham with his father, when he visited the big stables there to search for horses, either for himself or a friend; the elder man taught his son what points to look for and what to avoid. Willie thus acquired a certain confident genius for judging a horse, and all his life took a pleasure in exercising this quality; like his father before him, he was never afraid to buy horses at their request for friends who had more confidence in his judgment than in their own.
One summer holiday the boy found for himself a new recreation. In a letter to Stephen, dated from Gatacre, July 20, 1860, we find the following passage:
"Did you know that there was an Alderney bull come? I have begun to work him every day, but he does not like it, and he fights with me a great deal. But I find a good stick the best remedy; sometimes I have to bate him a good deal."
The brothers and sister clearly recall seeing Willie ride this animal day after day in the park.
It is evident that Number Three must often have been a source of anxiety to his parents. One evening in February he gave his mother a most horrible fright. The boys had arranged to go out after wood-pigeons in the spinneys round the house; as there was snow on the ground they slipped a night-shirt over their clothes to make themselves less visible. The three guns posted themselves in three coverts some distance apart, and then lay in wait for the birds as they came in to roost. Willie, who was then sixteen or seventeen, was in a lucky corner: he shot so many that he was at a loss how to bring the birds in. Slipping off his white covering, he made a bag of it and gathered up his spoils. By the time he reached the house he presented such an alarming appearance that his mother naturally imagined him the victim of some terrible accident. With great pride the boy counted out forty-two birds.
In 1856 the Squire was pricked for High Sheriff. There is an ancient custom by which all the sons of Gatacre are enrolled as Freemen of the Borough of Bridgnorth; and on June 25, 1860, William Forbes was duly sworn and inscribed on the rolls.
In the same year, on August 1, he was admitted to the Royal Military College; he was then only sixteen and a half, and measured five feet seven and a quarter inches in height. Ultimately he reached five feet eleven inches in his socks.