The exclusion of the evidence, which forms the basis of a number of exceptions, may be upheld upon the ground that the complaint declares on the note as it is written, and not otherwise. There is no effort in the pleadings to enlarge the liability of any of the parties. S. v. Bank, 193 N. C., 524, 137 S. E., 593. Nor is there a plea in defense of nudum, pactum. Consideration is admitted or not denied. The defendants have been sued simply as makers and guarantors of a note, and this more than three years after its maturity. There is no evidence that said note was extended or renewed from time to time. Wrenn v. Cotton Mills, 198 N. C., 89, 150 S. E., 676.
The question then arises: Does payment of interest by the makers of a note, after maturity but before it is barred, nothing else appearing, toll the statute of limitations against those who have guaranteed the payment of said note? We think not.
It is provided by C. S., 441, that an action upon a contract, obligation or liability arising out of contract, express or implied (except those mentioned in preceding sections), shall be barred if not brought within three years after the cause of action accrues. Welfare v. Thompson, 83 N. C., 276.
A guaranty is a contract, obligation or liability arising out of contract, whereby the promisor, or guarantor, undertakes to answer for the payment of some debt, or the performance of some duty, in case of the failure of another person who is himself in the first instance liable to such payment or performance. Cowan v. Roberts, 134 N. C., 415, 46 S. E., 297; Carpenter v. Wall, 20 N. C., 279; Chemical Co. v. Griffin, 202 N. C., 812. And the right to sue upon said contract or guaranty arises immediately upon the failure of the principal debtor to pay the debt at maturity or to meet his obligation according to its tenor. Beebe v. Kirkpatrick, 321 Ill., 612, 152 N. E., 539, 47 A. L. R., 891.
In the instant ease, therefore, the action against the guarantors is barred by the three-year statute of limitations, unless the payment of interest by the makers in the meantime, which repels the plea of the statute as to them, also repels it as to the guarantors.
Guarantors are not sureties; nor are they endorsers, though with respect to the plea of the statute of limitations, their liability is more nearly analogous to that of the latter than to that of the former. Coleman v. Fuller, 105 N. C., 328, 11 S. E., 175. The obligation of a surety is primary, while that of a guarantor is collateral. Rouse v. Wooten, 140 N. C., 557, 53 S. E., 430; Dole v. Young, 24 Pick. (Mass.), 252. A surety may be sued as a promisor with the principal debtor; a guarantor may not; his contract must be especially set forth or pleaded. Coleman v. Fuller, supra; Bank v. Haynes, 8 Pick. (Mass.), 423, 19 Am. Dec., 334.
*486But it is contended under the doctrine announced in Green v. Greensboro College, 83 N. C., 449, approved in Le Duc v. Butler, 112 N. C., 458, 17 S. E., 428, and Garrett v. Reeves, 125 N. C., 529, 34 S. E., 636, “that a payment made by the principal, before the action is barred, operates as a renewal as to all the obligors — sureties as well as principals,” applies equally to a guarantor, if not before maturity of the note, then certainly after default of the makers to pay, by virtue of C. S., 2977 which provides that the person “primarily liable” on an instrument is the person wbo by the terms of the instrument is absolutely required to pay the same. Tbis contention, however, overlooks the fact that the payment of interest by the makers in the instant case was on the note, evidencing the principal debt, and not upon the contract of guaranty wbicb determines the liability of the guarantors. Barber v. Absher Co., 175 N. C., 602, 96 S. E., 43; Wood v. Barber, 90 N. C., 76.
It would seem that the plaintiff has failed to repel the plea of the statute of limitations as against the guarantors, and that the judgment of nonsuit as to them is correct, Marks v. McLeod, ante, 257.
Affirmed.