 Edinburgh, Scotland, March 1827: John McGregor works all day to support his wife, Aggie, a fat drunk who sleeps incessantly, snoring, and has not left their cottage in two years. He does a lot of hauling for Hare, whom he suspects of being a resurrectionist, who digs up bodies to supply to medical schools. McGregor notes that some people who enter Hare s hotel never walk out again. McGregor is unhappy, and imagines killing his wife via bashing her head with a stone, drowning, and hanging, but realizes that none of those routes would be successful. One day he picks up another box of tanbark from Burke and Hare to deliver to Dr. Knox s medical museum. Knox says that he needs all of the tanbark to "spread around." McGregor notices a shock of human hair hanging from the box, and opens it with his pocket knife. He sees that the box contains the body of Elsie, the match vendor who was alive and well yesterday, frolicking in the spring countryside with Tommy Lad. McGregor decides to make Aggie his next cargo, so buys many bottles of whiskey, and serves them to Aggie. When she is inebriated, he leaves her on a bench outside Hare s hotel. Hare and Burke hear her snoring, and she is soon dispatched. The next day, McGregor asks Burke whether he has another load of tanbark, and Burke complies, but he asks McGregor to tell Knox that he will visit soon to discuss a new price for tanbark. Burke is surprised when McGregor refuses a double fee for the oversize load, instead asking for the regular rate. When Knox receives the box, he flips the usual coin to McGregor as a tip, and is perplexed when McGregor rejects it. McGregor is now lonely, and imagines that Aggie is still lying in her bed. He invites the new match seller, comely Rosie, into his dwelling, but becomes enraged when she lies in Aggie s bed, and scares Rosie away. He returns to the medical museum, and asks Knox to let him see the body that he delivered one last time. Knox tells Burke about McGregor s visit. When McGregor s liberation celebration renders him intoxicated, Burke produces another cadaver, which a new hauler brings to the medical college.