Footfall

[L]ike Hedg-hogs vvhich / Lye tumbling in my bare-foote vvay, and mount / Their pricks at my foot-fall: ſometime am I / All vvound vvith Adders, vvho vvith clouen tongues / Doe hiſſe me into madneſſe: […]

They are treading fast and thick. For weeks you could have heard a foot-fall.

At last I slid off into a light doze, and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into the room from under the door.

He did not hear her approach, her footfall was so light; and it was with the same silent step she went into the room, and knelt down beside him, and put her hands and face on his knee, […]

I thought of going out for a ride, and was about to get up when I heard a footfall on the steps behind. I looked back, but there was no one. As I sat down again, thinking it to be an illusion, I heard many footfalls, as if a large number of persons were rushing down the steps.

What might have been and what has been / Point to one end, which is always present. / Footfalls echo in the memory / Down the passage which we did not take / Towards the door we never opened / Into the rose-garden.

I cannot believe that he is gone. I expect him with every footfall I hear on the GCN stairs.

This stir of change and these perpetual echoes of the moving footfall, haunt the land. Men move eternally, still chasing Fortune; and, fortune found, still wander.

With high-street stores desperate to increase footfall and buck the financial downturn, retailers have started issuing discount vouchers.

John Betjeman enjoyed travelling on the line and said that, when he retired, he'd like to be the station master at Blake Hall, which was the stop before Ongar until it (Blake Hall) was closed permanently in 1981, its passenger footfall being down to six a day, or twelve, depending on whether you're counting passengers or feet.