Hitherto there had been only one shape and colour of waggon on the Marsh--a plain low-sided trough of deep sea-blue. The name was always painted in white on a small black wooden square attached to the side. Thomas Godden's waggons had been no departure from this rule. It was left to his daughter to flout tradition, and by some obscure process of local reasoning, bring discredit to her dead father by painting her waggons yellow instead of blue. The evil went deeper than mere colour. Joanna was a travelled woman, having once been to the Isle of Wight, and it suddenly struck her that, since she was repainting, she might give her three waggons the high gondola-shaped fronts that she had admired in the neighbourhood of Shanklin and Ventnor. These she further beautified with a rich, scrolled design, and her name in large, ornate lettering--"Joanna Godden. Little Ansdore. Walland Marsh"--so that her waggons went forth upon the roads very much as the old men o' war of King Edward's fleet had sailed over that same country when it was fathoms deep under the seas of Rye Bay.... With their towering, decorated poops they were more like mad galleys of a bygone age than sober waggons of a nineteenth century farm. Her improvements gave her a sense of adventurous satisfaction--her house with its yellow window frames and doors, with its new curtains of swaggering design--her high-pooped waggons--the coat with the brass buttons that old Stuppeny wore when he drove behind her to market--her dreams of giant sheep upon her innings--all appealed to something fundamental in her which was big and boastful. She even liked the gossip with which she was surrounded, the looks that were turned upon her when she drove into Rye or Lydd or New Romney--the "there goes Joanna Godden" of folk she passed. She had no acute sense of their disapproval; if she became aware of it she would only repeat to herself that she would "show 'em the style"--which she certainly did. Sec.11 Arthur Alce was very much upset by the gossip about Joanna. "All you've done since you started running Ansdore is to get yourself talked about," he said sadly. "Well, I don't mind that." "No, but you should ought to. A woman should ought to be modest and timid and not paint her house so's it shows up five mile off--first your house, and then your waggons--it'll be your face next." "Arthur Alce, you're very rude, and till you learn to be civil you can keep out of my house--the same as you can see five mile off."