The American Revolutionary War had made Nova Scotia's shores a sea-based battleground, with parties both loyal to and rebelling against the British Empire cruising the waters in search of glory and plunder.

 Liverpool was, by no exaggeration, very much at the centre of the adventures, good and bad.

 But while some men were out manning vessels, travelling the North Atlantic in search of riches, John Mullins was said to be content to stay at home and live off the supplementary spoils of war.

 Legend has it that Mullins had always been that way. A trader of sorts, Mullins was recruited for the occasional ocean-going adventure, but, by and large, he much preferred making a life for him and his wife by acquiring goods on land at a bargain basement price - free, if possible - which he would then polish up and trade for more valuable items.

 Over the years, it was an activity that Mullins had gotten rather good at, and when the privateering days of the late 18th century presented a market frequently flooded with desirable items, Mullins would make the most of the buyers' climate.

 Of course, the Liverpool trader was always careful to make sure he made a reasonable deal, especially with those associates who were known for having one too many ales. Mullins made sure to have witnesses for all his exchanges and, while he always got the best of a switch, he was very careful to make sure he traded value for value, lest he be accused of cheating a local.

 Such an accusation, after all, would result in the only punishment fit for a thief in those days: the perpetrator would forfeit one of his ears to compensate the victim of the poor deal.

 One evening Mullins was making his way home from a night's trading endeavours to his humble little shack along the shoreline, beyond the confines of Liverpool's centre.

 As he went, he thought he could hear the muffled voices of men and clanging metal in the distance. Curiosity getting the best of him, Mullins honed in on the noises. Careful to conceal himself behind some bushes, he peered down from the cart path he walked upon to the shoreline below.

 From his perch, Mullins could make out a number of men on the beach beneath, a freshly dug pit and a number of unidentified objects lying nearby on the sand at the base of a large, well-rooted tree. In the glow of the moonlight, the metallic edges of the unusual objects glinted, and Mullins gasped as he realized that he was looking upon a number of sea-chests.

 For a few moments, Mullins' mind raced with thoughts of wealth beyond all his daily dreams. He had happened upon the mother of all opportunities - pirates, privateers, whoever they were on the beach below, they were unloading their booty on this shore near his home, and once they had departed Mullins would be free to excavate the treasure for himself.

 Stifling his excitement, Mullins watched the activity more intently. Much to his chagrin, after a few minutes, the trader came to the realization that the unidentified men on the beach were not, in fact, burying the chests, but rather they were removing them.

 Dismayed by this development, Mullins gathered his thoughts for a moment and decided that, rather than abandoning this rarest of chances, he should lie in wait in the shadows until the marauders had left the area. Then, he could sneak down to the shore and search the hole, just in case some valuable nugget had been left behind in the cache.

 And so there, in the brush, Mullins quietly observed the doings. After what must have seemed like an eternity, the group of men left the pit and moved toward the shore. A few moments more passed and then the gentle swooshing sounds of oars cutting through calm waters arose from below.

 Mullins immediately knew that this was his chance: the oars betrayed the presence of a boat in the coastal waters, meaning that the mysterious guests were most certainly under way, likely returning to their primary vessel tucked safely somewhere out of sight in a neighbouring cove.

 Leaving the safety of his outpost behind, Mullins tiptoed down to the beach and the promising pit, which had not been filled in. Prodding at the sand and seeing a boxed edge emerge from the dunes, it quickly became clear to Mullins that there was, indeed, another item of interest waiting for his discovery.

 Sifting through the sands, Mullins grabbed onto a corner and, to his amazement, pulled to the surface a small copper-framed chest.

 He beamed at the discovery and was so taken with the development that he failed to notice the encroaching steps of some more strangers.

 Mullins, suddenly realizing he was not alone, lifted his head, only to find the blade of a cutlass staring him in the face.

 One of the men, stepping forward, asked the intruder how he had come to find this secret hiding place.

 Mullins, fearing what his fate might be, sputtered out a few words, vainly attempting to explain that he had overheard the commotion from the road on his way home.

 "Well," the shadowy figure is purported to have responded, "a fine pair of ears ye have, m'friend. And since y'likes digging, I have a job for ye.

 "And," the stranger added menacingly, "ye shall be paid for your work."

 At morning's light, further down the beach, Hannah Mullins awoke to find that her husband was nowhere to be found.

 Alarmed that her little night owl had failed to come home at all the night before, Mrs. Mullins went into Liverpool to track him down. Unable to find anyone who had seen John, she begged for help from the townsfolk. They, somewhat grudgingly, conceded to organize a search party to find the missing man.

 A thorough examination of the countryside eventually led the party to the secluded beachhead where Mullins happened upon his apparent treasure trove the night before.

 And it was, moments later, on that same beach that the search party literally stumbled on John Mullins' mutilated head.

 Sticking up from the sand, Mullins' head - bloodied and dirty - seemed to be standing on its own. Immediately, the worst was feared: poor Mr. Mullins had met some devilish strangers and been brutally decapitated.

 But an inspection by the braver souls of the party revealed that Mullins was actually alive and, as is always the case with a living person, that his head was still very much attached to his body. Unfortunately for Mullins, while his life had been spared, parts of his body had not: the mysterious strangers had taken it upon themselves to slice off both of Mullins' ears.

 It took some time to dig Mullins' battered body out of the sand. In the process, the party also found a small bag of gold and silver coins tied around the trader's neck. As it was later revealed, the strangers encountered the night before had forced Mullins to dig his own hole. He was then thrown in the pit, his ears removed, and buried.

 In exchange for digging his own cell, Mullins had been rewarded with the coins from the treasure trove as payment, just as it had been promised.

 The days that followed involved much panic in the Liverpool area, once Mullins' sickening story of privateers, plunder and precision slicing spread through the town.

 Eventually, by late October of 1782, in order to cull wild rumours and fears, and to discourage piracy in the waters along the South Shore, the government of Nova Scotia issued a reward of 20 pounds for the capture of the persons responsible for taking Mullins' ears.

 But, despite the modest reward, no one ever stepped forward to claim the money, and the men responsible for relieving John Mullins of his ears disappeared with an unknown bounty, and anonymity, into the fog of history.

 Sources: Sherwood, Roland, "Story Parade"; More, James F., "The History of Queens County"; "Diary of Simeon Perkins, 1780-1789" published by The Champlain Society; Queens County Historical Society and Museum, Liverpool, Nova Scotia.

Written and researched by Patrick Hirtle.