By this stratagem he escaped the payment of the fine; but his engagement was not renewed, and, having saved some money, he started a circus, and opened with it at Yarmouth. Business was very bad there, and he proceeded to Colchester, where part of the circus was blown down by a high wind, and this accident created an impression of insecurity which damaged his prospects in that town beyond repair. At Bury St Edmunds and Leicester he was equally unsuccessful, and determined to proceed northward. Nottingham afforded good houses, but Leeds was a failure, and at Huddersfield the gallery gave way, and the alarm created by the accident deterred persons from venturing into the circus afterwards. Franconi’s company were doing good business at Manchester, in the Free Trade Hall, at this time; and Wallett, after two more experiments, at Burnley and Wigan, with continued ill fortune, effected an amalgamation with the French troupe. James Hernandez, one of the most accomplished equestrians who have ever entered the arena, made his _début_ at Manchester while the combined companies and studs were performing there, and proved so sterling an attraction that he was engaged for the following season at Astley’s. Crowther, who has been incidentally mentioned in connection with Wallett, married Miss Vincent, ‘the acknowledged heroine of the domestic drama,’ as she was styled in the Victoria bills. The union was not a happy one, though the cause of its infelicity never transpired. It was whispered about, however, that a prior attachment on Crowther’s part to another lady had something to do with it; and there were many significant nods and winks, and grave shakings of the head, at the bar of the Victoria Tavern, and at the Rodney and the Pheasant, over the circumstance of his strange behaviour in the church at which he and the fair Eliza were married. The talk was, that the bride’s position and worldly possessions had tempted him to break the word of promise he had plighted to another, and that compunction for his faithlessness was the cause of his strangeness of demeanour on the wedding-day, and of the domestic infelicity which it preluded. But nothing ever transpired to show that these rumours had any foundation in fact. CHAPTER VII. Hengler’s Circus—John and George Sanger—Managerial Anachronisms and Incongruities—James Hernandez—Eaton and Stone—Horses at Drury Lane—James Newsome—Howes and Cushing’s Circus—George Sanger and the Fighting Lions—Crockett and the Lions at Astley’s—The Lions at large—Hilton’s Circus—Lion-queens—Miss Chapman—Macomo and the Fighting Tigers.