A sentence from George Orwell's Animal Farm:
In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on evil days.
You can find the entire chapter at this link.
What does of in "of late" mean, and how is it used here?
What does "had fallen on evil days" mean? Is it an idiom?
What does the whole sentence mean?
I noticed "had been a capable farmer" and "had fallen" are using the same tense, but I guess by using "but of late", there should be some differences between the two timings.
Best Answer
To expand on the answer given by Ankit:
of late = recently
had fallen on evil days = had been having problems, or difficulties. I would not consider it an idiom myself, but perhaps it was a more common usage in the author's era.
To re-word the sentence in an attempt to make its meaning clearer: