This was not sulks, but kind feeling.

He wanted them to have something else to think of besides the way they hadn't stood by him in the bursting of the secret staircase door and the tea-tray and the milk.
Next morning Oswald kindly explained, and asked who would volunteer for a forced march to Hazelbridge.

The word volunteer cost the young Oswald a pang as soon as he had said it, but I hope he can bear pangs with any man living.

'And mind,' he added, hiding the pang under a general-like severeness, 'I won't have anyone in the expedition who has anything in his shoes except his feet.' This could not have been put more delicately and decently.

But Oswald is often misunderstood.