A day or two previously my father had returned from England, and I found him with my stepmother. He became very much interested in my story, and talked of going to Laval himself. Further important developments might soon occur, the Germans might push on to Chanzy's new base, and I felt that I also ought to go back. The life I had been leading either makes or mars a man physically. Personally, I believe that it did me a world of good. At all events, it was settled that my father and myself should go to Laval together. We started a couple of days later, and managed to travel by rail as far as Rennes. But from that point to Laval the line was now very badly blocked, and so we hired a closed vehicle, a ramshackle affair, drawn by two scraggy Breton nags. The main roads, being still crowded with troops, artillery, and baggage waggons, and other impedimenta, were often impassable, and so we proceeded by devious ways, amidst which our driver lost himself, in such wise that at night we had to seek a shelter at the famous Chateau des Bochers, immortalized by Mme. de Sévigné, and replete with precious portraits of herself, her own and her husband's families, in addition to a quantity of beautiful furniture dating from her time.
It took us, I think, altogether two days to reach Laval, where, after securing accommodation at one of the hotels, we went out in search of news, having heard none since we had started on our journey. Perceiving a newspaper shop, we entered it, and my father insisted on purchasing a copy of virtually every journal which was on sale there. Unfortunately for us, this seemed highly suspicious to a local National Guard who was in the shop, and when we left it he followed us. My father had just then begun to speak to me in English, and at the sound of a foreign tongue the man's suspicions increased. So he drew nearer, and demanded to know who and what we were. I replied that we were English and that I had previously been authorised to accompany the army as a newspaper correspondent. My statements, however, were received with incredulity by this suspicious individual, who, after one or two further inquiries, requested us to accompany him to a guard-house standing near one of the bridges thrown over the river Mayenne.