The Body Snatcher Page #2

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MRS. MACBRIDE

A doctor?

FETTES:

A student. I'm studying under Dr.

MacFarlane -- that is, I've been

studying until today --

He starts to get up. At this moment in the street can be

heard the clop-clop of a horse's hoofs and the rattle of iron

wheels on the cobblestones. On the ground and gravestones

appears and passes the monstrous shadow of a horse and cab,

angular and distorted, the driver's shadow hunched and evil,

now going from left to right.

EXT. EDINBURGH STREET -- LATE AFTERNOON

LONG SHOT -- a typical street scene of the time. A dog cart

drawn by a smart tandem passes. It is driven by a young buck

of the period; top-hatted, dandified, his whip held at a just

so angle. On the sidewalk, a group of small boys follow a

recruiting sergeant of the Seaforth Highlanders. A drummer

walks at his heels. He stops at a wooden "Charlie", the

rough police booth of that day, and begins to tack up his

posters. The boys crowd around to watch. One of them backs

up to a little trundle cart and surreptitiously filches a

piece of the shortbread being sold from this portable store.

At the other side of the "Charlie" stands a street singer, a

beautiful girl of about nineteen, dressed in ragged Highland

plaid. She is singing an old border ballad about two crows

who sit waiting to pick the dead eyes out of a fallen knight.

A shepherd, crook in hand, and faithfully attended by two

handsome collies, stops a moment to hear her song, drops some

coppers into the begging bowl she holds in her hands, then

passes on.

Through the consonance of the street singer's song comes the

dissonant beat of a horse's hoofs, the racking clatter of

iron-shod wheels and then between the singer and the CAMERA

there passes, very close, the white horse and the black cab.

As it blocks her out of the scene

WIPE DISSOLVE:

EXT. MACFARLANE'S HOUSE -- LATE AFTERNOON

FULL SHOT -- Before the imposing edifice which houses Dr.

MacFarlane's living quarters as well as his school of

anatomy, the cab, drawn by the white horse, pulls up. The

driver begins to alight from the box. He climbs down, and

starts for the cab door.

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