Afternoon runs are good runs; pretty sure of an empty fox and a good scent after one o'clock." "Exactly," answered a fresh voice from behind; "and fox-hunting is an epitome of human life.

You chop or lose your first two or three: but keep up your pluck, and you'll run into one before sun-down; and I seem to have run into a whole earthful!" All looked round; for all knew that voice.
Yes! There he was, in bodily flesh and blood; thin, sallow, bearded to the eyes, dressed in ragged sailor's clothes: but Tom himself.
Grace uttered a long, low, soft, half-laughing cry, full of the delicious agony of sudden relief; a cry as of a mother when her child is born; and then slipped from the room past the unheeding Tom, who had no eyes but for his father.

Straight up to the old man he went, took both his hands, and spoke in the old cheerful voice,-- "Well, my dear old daddy! So you seem to have expected me; and gathered, I suppose, all my friends to bid me welcome.

I'm afraid I have made you very anxious: but it was not my fault; and I knew you would be certain I should come at last, eh ?" "My son! my son! Let me feel whether thou be my very son Esau or not!" murmured the old man, finding half-playful expression in the words of Scripture, for feelings beyond his failing powers.
Tom knelt down: and the old man passed his hands in silence over and over the forehead, and face, and beard; while all stood silent.
Mark Armsworth burst out blubbering like a great boy: "I said so! I always said so! The devil could not kill him, and God wouldn't!" "You won't go away again, dear boy?
I'm getting old--and--and forgetful; and I don't think I could bear it again, you see." Tom saw that the old man's powers were failing.

"Never again, as long as I live, daddy!" said he, and then, looking round,--"I think that we are too many for my father.