There he found that Maxwell's men were part of a detachment which included other companies of Prescott's regiment, a part of Bridge's, a part of Frye's, and a number of Connecticut troops under Captain Knowlton, of Putnam's regiment. There was also some artillery, with Colonel Gridley himself. And there stood the tall, powerful figure of Colonel Prescott, wearing a long blue coat, his strong, stern face shaded by the slightly turned up brim of a great round hat. The air was charged with expectation, with a sense of great events at hand. The force paraded on the Common, and then stood with heads bared and hands resting on the guns, while a venerable-looking gentleman, whom a whispering comrade named to Dick as President Langdon of Harvard College, raised his hand heavenward and uttered a tremulous prayer for the aid of the Lord of Hosts. There was a period of waiting, during which the colonel consulted quietly with Gridley and the other officers, while the suppressed excitement of the men made some appear moody and abstracted, some nervous and sharp in their whispered speeches, others extraordinarily calm in tone, others oddly jocular. Dick was one of the last, in mood and countenance, but was so filled with emotion that he dared not trust himself to speak. Tom was placidly grim and patient, keeping his wits about him and exhibiting no change in tone or manner. The fallen darkness gave the human figures, the distant trees and scattered houses, the rolling landscape, a mysterious look. At last, at nine o'clock, in low, quick tone, the order was given to march. First went two sergeants, carrying dark lanterns; then strode Colonel Prescott, at the head of the detachment. Behind the infantry and the cannon, the shovels and other tools were borne, with which to make entrenchments. Keeping strict silence, as they had been ordered, the men trailed past Inman's Woods, Prospect Hill, and Cobble Hill, crossed a level space (another common), and halted at Charlestown Neck. Here, in the darkness, General Putnam rode up, and they were joined by other officers also. Presently Captain Nutting's company and a few Connecticut men separated from the detachment and marched to the lower part of Charlestown, to act there as a guard. The main force was soon on the march again, and followed the road over a smooth round hill (the real Bunker's Hill), at the base of which it halted again. Prescott gathered the officers around him, and quietly made known the orders he had come to carry out. Watching the group alertly, Dick saw the officers look or point, now at the hill just crossed, now at the hill ahead, as if discussing which to use for the purpose in hand. Finally the men were marched to the hill ahead, from which Boston on its hills and hillsides could be seen sleeping, across the wide mouth of the Charles River.