On a “fun” aside to this devastation, as a child Horatio did not realize that limbs do not simply fall off. He was very much under the impression that losing limbs was a normal part of life and something to fear, and he had a terrible terror that his arms and other body parts may end up in the bucket for any reason, though over time came to associate loss of limb to injury and illness. Through this, the terror ebbed, though amputation was, until the day he died, a quiet internal terror.

The fun part about this is how it ties into Horatio’s natural gullibility. When he was six, a new nurse played with him rather often. One day she reached down and tweaked his nose, drawing her hand back with her thumb poking between her fingers and informed him she got his nose.

Horatio, still under the impression limbs could, in fact, just drop off, immediately started to cry. Horrified, she showed him her hands, but he did not register anything until Fiona picked him up and carried him to a mirror so he could see for himself his nose was right where he needed it to be.

This kind of gullibility never really leaves Horatio. He falls for tricks and jokes all the time because he tends to think in such a serious fashion. Childhood was never a real thing for him – so lightheartedness, jesting and good hearted trickery tend to get him every time.

Bracegirdle figured this out incredibly quickly and capitalized upon it the whole of his career with Hornblower under wing – and from time to time, Bracegirdle even convinced others to play tricks on Horatio, just so that they could see for themselves how adorably gullible the generally wickedly clever young man could be.