Come to see what's the matter wi' me, I suppose, my lad ?' The doctor had come and gone, and the hand had been pronounced as injured but slightly, though it might possibly have been considered a far more serious case if Mr.Smith had been a more important man.
Stephen's anxious inquiry drew from his father words of regret at the inconvenience to the world of his doing nothing for the next two days, rather than of concern for the pain of the accident.

Together they entered the house.
John Smith--brown as autumn as to skin, white as winter as to clothes--was a satisfactory specimen of the village artificer in stone.
In common with most rural mechanics, he had too much individuality to be a typical 'working-man'-- a resultant of that beach-pebble attrition with his kind only to be experienced in large towns, which metamorphoses the unit Self into a fraction of the unit Class.
There was not the speciality in his labour which distinguishes the handicraftsmen of towns.

Though only a mason, strictly speaking, he was not above handling a brick, if bricks were the order of the day; or a slate or tile, if a roof had to be covered before the wet weather set in, and nobody was near who could do it better.

Indeed, on one or two occasions in the depth of winter, when frost peremptorily forbids all use of the trowel, making foundations to settle, stones to fly, and mortar to crumble, he had taken to felling and sawing trees.

Moreover, he had practised gardening in his own plot for so many years that, on an emergency, he might have made a living by that calling.
Probably our countryman was not such an accomplished artificer in a particular direction as his town brethren in the trades.