So that he soon forgot to be forever alert for the crack of an ambushed pistol or the pattering footfalls of an assassin with a knife.

It was remarkable that, as the light of the torch beamed out, the faint sound of footfalls on the road behind died away.

So through the long hours she had waited, had waited and watched, listening for a footfall in the street, for a step on the porch, for a sound at her door; yet no one came.

There amidst the songs of heaven Sweeter to His ear Is the footfall through the desert, Ever drawing near.

At his rush, at the sound of his heavy footfall over the rocks, the four turned with a single movement; Ufert covered him with a rifle, but Nash knocked down the boy's arm.

Peggy, with her shoes on, possessed the stolid steadiness of a wooden grenadier, for the heaviness of the massive boots seemed to permeate her whole being, and communicated what might be considered a slow and heavy footfall to her intellect.

Once he got up to stop the ticking of a clock on the chimney-piece, moving mechanically with stealthy footfall across the room lest she should be disturbed.

The story is told by Robert Dale Owen in Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, and vouched for as authentic (1860).

I couldn't believe it, an' would stop an' listen for his whistle at the barn, his talk to the horses, his rattle at the pump, his footfall at the door, until, crazy with waitin,' I'd go over to the bed, pull back the sheet, an' in the still face read why I should never hear those happy sounds againnever again.

We were sitting there less than five minutes when we heard a footfall near by; then suddenly two men strode up to us in the dim light.

Hazing has "gone out" at Harwell, and so, when at about nine the two boys beard many footfalls outside their door, and when in response to West's loud "Come" five mysterious and muffled figures in black masks entered they were somewhat puzzled what to think.