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248 CRADLE TALES OF HINDUISM It came by no degrees to its proper place. Rather has it been faithful and at rest since the very birth of time. Surely in all the world of men there could be nothing like this, unswerving, unerring from beginning to end, the witness of movement, itself immutable. Unless indeed we might imagine that some child in his heart had found the Goal, and remained thenceforth, silent absorbed and stirless, from eternity to eternity, through all the ages of man.

In India, the mystic land of the lotus, was born the child Druwa. His father was a king, and his mother, Suniti, the chief of all the queens. Yet even on a lot so fortunate as this, may fall the dark shadow of disaster. For long before the birth of Druwa, the son of one of the younger queens had been promised the throne, and the coming of the new child would undo this claim, since the son of the principal queen was undoubtedly the King's true heir. It is easy, there- fore, to understand the anger and fear of the lesser wife at the child's birth. She was jealous of the new baby, on behalf of her own son, and did not fail to show her feeling in many ways ; till at last the King, in very anxiety for their safety, ordered his wife and little one to be exiled from the court, and sent them to live in a simple cottage, on the distant edge of a great forest.

It was a humble cottage enough, yet charming