At the age of nineteen he returned to his father's house, and, making a rough attempt at a hermit's dress out of two kirtles of his sister's and a hood belonging to his father, he ran away to follow the religious vocation.
Because my armies are down south and my queen ran away.
Gladstone, in defending the government against Roebuck, rebuked in dignified and significant terms the conduct of men who, " hoping to escape from punishment, ran away from duty."
Taking the narratives as we now have them, Balaam is a companion figure to Jonah, the prophet who wanted to go where he was not sent, over against the prophet who ran away from the mission to which he was called.
In 1784 he ran away from school to enlist in the artillery, but was brought back and sent to study law at Lyons and Dijon.