" Albert, apparently sensing that Traigh was, at that moment, plotting the different ways in which he’d kill their youngest brother, spoke up. “So will it be a hangin’in store fer Graeme, or do ye just plan on beatin’him half to death?”
Traigh glanced at Albert. “I have no’decided just yet.”
Albert was the most serious of the six MacAulay brothers. He rarely spoke without thinking first, and he was not one to go about chasing lasses like their brothers, Bruce and Albert. Neither was he one to jest frequently. ’Twas also said that Albert was as tightfisted with his money as a bairn is to his mother’s teat. Trying to get money from him was akin to trying to squeeze water from a stone.
“I say we hang him,”Albert said, and not in jest.
Traigh, though sorely tempted, knew ’twas impossible.
“Our mother would have our heads if we hang him.”
Albert thought on it for a moment. “Mayhap one day he will be out ridin’and have a mishap, whereby he falls off a cliff.”
Traigh stared at him for a long while, uncertain if he was jesting or serious. Part of him was afraid to ask. Albert was just as vexed over Graeme’s behavior as Traigh was.
“Remind me never to make ye angry,”he said.
Albert raised a blonde brow. “Ye? Nay, I doubt ye’d ever anger me to the point of murder. Graeme, however, is another matter. I fear he has been so busy with book learnin’that he has fergotten everythin’a MacAulay stands for.”
“Honor above self,”Traigh said.
’Twas the creed all MacAulays lived by.
“Aye,”Albert said. “And right now, I believe he’s puttin’his own feelin’s ahead of everythin’. How anyone can remain angry for so long is beyond me. But then, I have no’had all the book learnin’that Graeme has had. Mayhap he can explain it to us.”Though his voice was laced with sarcasm, there was much truth to what he was saying.
Traigh had to chuckle. “Shall we allow him to explain it before or after we beat him senseless?”
Albert took a moment before answering. “Mayhap before, fer ’twill be difficult to understand him once I knock out a few of his teeth.”
“Again, remind me ne’er to make ye angry, brother.”
Albert shrugged his shoulders before urging his horse to move faster, leaving Traigh to wonder if he should mayhap begin to pray that Albert did not get his hands on Graeme first. "

― Suzan Tisdale , Isle of the Blessed