Chap

Hi

I'm curious if the word "chap" refers only to a male or maybe it can refer to a female as well.

A teacher and a headmaster of a school are talking to a lady who beats her granddaughter. He says:

Mrs Rigby, Ethel had cause to remove her dress in

school this afternoon and Miss Mayfield saw, to her

consternation, that her back shows marks of a beating. A

pretty severe beating.’

‘Be a funny thing if it didn’t,’ Mrs Rigby said with no

sign of being, abashed or repentant. ‘Laid it on good and

hard, I did. She ’ll bear the marks for a week, I reckon.’

‘May we know why you beat her?’

‘Youmay. You’ll understand, sir. I’mnot having her go

the way Maud went, at least not for lack of a hiding to

bring her. to her senses.’

‘Not that old trouble already?’

‘Sorry as I am to say it, that is so. I’ll name no names

for the present, and I’ve knocked sense into Ethel I

think, but if I have anymore bother, I shall ask you to hev a word

with the chap. Everything else apart, she ’s only fourteen

and, sometimes I think, not all that bright.’

--- Do you think that the word "chap" here refers to that beaten girl or to some other person?

Thanks