When the students had passed the range of study appointed by the professors, they returned from Switzerland to France to enter upon the work of their lives. They had passed the school for martyrdom, and were ready to preach to the assemblies--they had paved their way to the scaffold! The preachers always went abroad with their lives in their hands. They travelled mostly by night, shunning the open highways, and selecting abandoned routes, often sheep-paths across the hills, to reach the scene of their next meeting. The trace of their steps is still marked upon the soil of the Cevennes, the people of the country still speaking of the solitary routes taken by their instructors when passing from parish to parish, to preach to their fathers. They were dressed, for disguise, in various ways; sometimes as peasants, as workmen, or as shepherds. On one occasion, Court and Duplan travelled the country disguised as officers! The police heard of it, and ordered their immediate arrest, pointing out the town and the very house where they were to be taken. But the preachers escaped, and assumed a new dress. When living near Nismes, Court was one day seated under a tree composing a sermon, when a party of soldiers, hearing that he was in the neighbourhood, came within sight. Court climbed up into the tree, where he remained concealed among the branches, and thus contrived to escape their search. On another occasion, he was staying with a friend, in whose house he had slept during the previous night. A detachment of troops suddenly surrounded the house, and the officer knocked loudly at the door. Court made his friend go at once to bed pretending to be ill, while he himself cowered down in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. His wife slowly answered the door, which the soldiers were threatening to blow open. They entered, rummaged the house, opened all the chests and closets, sounded the walls, examined the sick man's room, and found nothing! Court himself, as well as the other pastors, worked very hard. On one occasion, Court made a round of visits in Lower Languedoc and in the Cevennes, at first alone, and afterwards accompanied by a young preacher. In the space of two months and a few days he visited thirty-one churches, holding assemblies, preaching, and administering the sacrament, during which he travelled over three hundred miles. The weather did not matter to the pastors--rain nor snow, wind nor storm, never hindered them. They took the road and braved all. Even sickness often failed to stay them. Sickness might weaken but did not overthrow them.