badger

The badger is one of the many wild creatures whose hidden life on the moor Dickon Sowerby understands and protects. Dickon knows where badgers make their homes, and he keeps the locations secret so that other boys will not find their holes and frighten them. This knowledge is part of the vast, intimate lore of the moor that Dickon possesses—a world of otters, water-rats, foxes, and badgers, all busy building and living in their own ways. When Colin first begins to explore the natural world from his wheelchair and later on his feet, Dickon reveals these secrets to him, adding badgers' ways to the endless things for Colin to talk about and think over. The badger thus belongs to the teeming, hidden underworld of the moor that Dickon makes visible to the two children, a world as full of purpose and life as the secret garden itself.