Fall On Someone's Neck Meaning

(dated, idiomatic) To embrace someone affectionately or thankfully.

Example: 1856, Charles Kingsley, The Heroes, Story III: Theseus:
  [W]hen Theseus saw him, his heart leapt into his mouth, and he longed to fall on his neck and welcome him.
1910, William MacLeod Raine, Bucky O'Connor, ch. 15:
  If he expected either of them to fall on his neck and weep tears of gratitude at his pompous announcement, the colonel was disappointed.
1920, Harold MacGrath, The Drums Of Jeopardy, ch. 24:
  I ought to fall on your neck with joy. . . . You are my father's friend, my mother's, mine.
1990 March 18, Anne Tyler, "Review of Collected Stories of Wallace Stegner," New York Times (retrieved 14 May 2015):
  "[T]he moment your delinquent showed the slightest sign of decency . . . you fell on his neck as if he had rescued you from drowning."
2012, Karen Templeton, Hanging by a Thread, ISBN 9781459246263, ch. 25 (Google preview):
  [A]fter falling on my neck and hugging me and calling me “cousin” like a character from a Jane Austen novel, . . . she sat me down.